Nicolas Floc'h & Sylvain Agostini

The biodiversity of marine habitats

The Foundation is broadening its field of exploration to include ecological issues through a series of online and in pair conversations “Creators facing the climate emergency”. Artists, scientists and philosophers are invited to question today’s world and imagine new narratives to draw more desirable futures:

Which commitment and responsibility do the artist and the philosopher have regarding this crisis?
How are artistic and writing practices impacted? Which behaviour should individually and collectively be implemented?
What new way to produce and display art while public engagement becomes increasingly immaterial?
Which vision and creativeness to be impulsed for reinventing tomorrow’s world?

Themes: Transformation of marine landscapes under the action of global warming / Actions to preserve marine biodiversity / Designing an inventory of seabed typologies / Coral bleaching and ocean acidification: the impact of anthropic pressures / The posture of the artist as that of a scientist / How can art and science mutually help the development of a sustainable innovation?

Cited reference over this conversation
Emmanuele Coccia, La Vie des Plantes, Editions Rivages, 2016

Nicolas Floc'h and Sylvain Agostini met during the Tara Pacific expedition led by the Tara Ocean Foundation where Sylvain Agostini was a scientific coordinator. Since then, they have had many projects, such as "Science-Art Initium Maris" where they document the tropicalisation of marine ecosystems. Kelp forests, typical of temperate zone ecosystems, are being replaced by coral communities, radically changing the underwater landscape and the ecosystem services they provide.

Speakers

His installations, photographs, films, sculptures and performances question an era of transition in which flux, disappearance and regeneration play an essential role. Over the last ten years, work centred on the representation of environments and the underwater environment from which has resulted a documentary photographic production linked to global changes and the definition of the notion of underwater landscape. He is currently exhibited at the Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur [Paysages productifs - until 25 April 2021]. His research are inspired by reality and positions the artist and the citizen as active actors in the evolution of our relationship with the living. Nicolas Floc'h is represented by Galerie Maubert in Paris and Galerie LMNO in Brussels. He has been featured in numerous French and international shows, including at the SMAK, Ghent, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, MAMM, Moscow, Setouchi Triennial, Japan, Kyocera Museum, Kyoto, Japan, MALI, Lima, Peru, Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile.