Luma Days #5 English

This conversation with the architects from Assemble and BC Architects & Studies highlights the various structural and economic issues related to the creation and construction of buildings. Each of them proposes to question new perspectives and to set up practices in consideration of the environment, locality, living together and the sharing of knowledge in a more de-centralized and less competitive world.

In these uncertain times, the “architect” can become an activist by questioning old values and focusing on social impact.

BC
BC is BC architects, studies and materials. BC stands for Brussels Cooperation and points to how BC grew – embedded within place and people. Started in 2012 as a hybrid office, BC is manoeuvring the boundaries of architecture in a doers manner. With three different legal entities, the team engages in a variety of experimental projects through which it designs bioregional and circular architecture, researches educational and construction processes and produces new building materials using local waste streams such as excavated earth.

More on: https://www.bc-as.org/

In conversation with:
Laurens Bekemans, Architect, BC
James Binning, Architect, Assemble
Joe Halligan, Architect, Assemble
Daniel Bell, Architect, Atelier Luma
Mustapha Bouhayati, CEO, Luma Arles
Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Senior Curator, Luma Arles

Moderation :
Jan Boelen, Artistic Director, Atelier Luma

This conversation with the architects from Assemble and BC Architects & Studies highlights the various structural and economic issues related to the creation and construction of buildings. Each of them proposes to question new perspectives and to set up practices in consideration of the environment, locality, living together and the sharing of knowledge in a more de-centralized and less competitive world.

In these uncertain times, the “architect” can become an activist by questioning old values and focusing on social impact.

BC
BC is BC architects, studies and materials. BC stands for Brussels Cooperation and points to how BC grew – embedded within place and people. Started in 2012 as a hybrid office, BC is manoeuvring the boundaries of architecture in a doers manner. With three different legal entities, the team engages in a variety of experimental projects through which it designs bioregional and circular architecture, researches educational and construction processes and produces new building materials using local waste streams such as excavated earth.

More on: https://www.bc-as.org/

In conversation with:
Ken De Cooman, Architect, BC
James Binning, Architect, Assemble
Joe Halligan, Architect, Assemble
Daniel Bell, Architect, Atelier Luma
Mustapha Bouhayati, CEO, Luma Arles
Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Senior Curator, Luma Arles

Moderation :
Jan Boelen, Artistic Director, Atelier Luma

This conversation with the architects from Assemble and BC Architects & Studies highlights the various structural and economic issues related to the creation and construction of buildings. Each of them proposes to question new perspectives and to set up practices in consideration of the environment, locality, living together and the sharing of knowledge in a more de-centralized and less competitive world.

In these uncertain times, the “architect” can become an activist by questioning old values and focusing on social impact.

Assemble
Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, whilst retaining a democratic and co-operative working method that enables built, social and research-based work at a variety of scales, both making things and making things happen.

More on: https://assemblestudio.co.uk/

In conversation with:
Ken De Cooman, Architect, BC
Laurens Bekemans, Architect, BC
Joe Halligan, Architect, Assemble
Daniel Bell, Architect, Atelier Luma
Mustapha Bouhayati, CEO, Luma Arles
Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Senior Curator, Luma Arles

Moderation :
Jan Boelen, Artistic Director, Atelier Luma

This conversation with the architects from Assemble and BC Architects & Studies highlights the various structural and economic issues related to the creation and construction of buildings. Each of them proposes to question new perspectives and to set up practices in consideration of the environment, locality, living together and the sharing of knowledge in a more de-centralized and less competitive world.

In these uncertain times, the “architect” can become an activist by questioning old values and focusing on social impact.

Assemble
Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, whilst retaining a democratic and co-operative working method that enables built, social and research-based work at a variety of scales, both making things and making things happen.

More on: https://assemblestudio.co.uk/

In conversation with:
Ken De Cooman, Architect, BC
Laurens Bekemans, Architect, BC
James Binning, Architect, Assemble
Daniel Bell, Architect, Atelier Luma
Mustapha Bouhayati, CEO, Luma Arles
Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Senior Curator, Luma Arles

Moderation :
Jan Boelen, Artistic Director, Atelier Luma

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

At the time of the narrative crisis, it seems that we need new ideas to oppose the neo-liberal ideology. It is in this context that sociologist and director of the Revue du MAUSS Alain Caillé shares with us the ambition behind the Convivialist Movement.

Alain Caillé is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Paris West-Nanterre University. He is the Director-Founder of the MAUSS Review (Anti-Utilitarist Movement in Social Sciences) which, following on the famous Essay on the Gift by Marcel Mauss (1925), criticizes the dominant tendency in social sciences and moral and political philosophy that sees in humans only their dimension as individuals quite separate from each other, indifferent and calculating. His latest book is Extensions du domaine du don. Demander-donner-recevoir-rendre ((Extensions in the Field of the Gift. To ask for-to give-to receive-to return)) (Actes Sud, September 2019). Alain Caillé is furthermore a leader of the Convivialist Movement. The latest text to have appeared is: Internationale convivialiste, Second manifeste convivialiste. Pour un monde post-néolibéral, ((The Convivalist International, The Second Convivalist Manifesto. For a Post-Neoliberal World)) (Actes Sud, February 2020). This text has been signed by 300 intellectuals and militants from 33 different countries.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

The depletion of natural resources pushes us to rethink the destructive logics of a capitalist economy. It is in this context that Emmanuel Druon and his colleagues from the Pocheco company have formulated and put into practice the principles of ecolonomic theory.

After training in human sciences at the Sorbonne, Emmanuel Druon’s professional career took him to L’Oréal, Le Bourget and Kindy before he joined Pocheco in 1997. Here his job is to bring together the talents of about a hundred people at the service of a specific project: how to do business without destroying the environment. Pocheco produces a billion envelopes and 100 million zero waste bags per year, and Pocheco also produce ideas and vegetables with permaculture. The firm helps companies move towards the “ecolonomic” transition, at a galop, right across the world. The team ensures that Pocheco applies on site what has been recommended to its clients. The firm’s production is zero waste, zero fossil fuel, zero nuclear, zero plastic, and self-sufficient in electricity and water. 85% of the site is permeable and has been returned to its natural state. Emmanuel and his team give lectures and are the authors of three books recently published by Actes Sud, with two further works due to be published in September, again by Actes Sud.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Grégoire Loïs is Deputy Director of Vigie-Nature (Nature Watch), and proposes his naturalist’s interpretation of the living environment. He is opposed to all value judgments in our comprehension of Nature which, in his view, is neutral and does not grant a key role to Humanity.

Passionate about Nature since his childhood, Grégoire Loïs went to work at the Natural History Museum almost 25 years ago. He has mainly worked on development and the promotion of naturalist participatory sciences, with a seven-year break at the European Agency for the Environment. He is proud to have transmitted passion, curiosity and empathy for living creatures to his two children and will continue to do so with his grandchildren. His book “What Birds Can Tell Us” has just been published in paperback.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In her theory of symbiotic economy, the author and co-founder of Do Green Isabelle Delannoy proposes an alternative to an economic growth purely driven by extractivist and destructive forces.

Isabelle Delannoy, author of L’Économie symbiotique, régénérer la planète, l’économie et la société, (The Symbiotic Economy: Regenerating the Planet, the Economy and Society), Actes Sud 2017, she is also a director of Do Green; a co-founder of the Project for the Partnership Chair between the Symbiotic Economy of the Regions with the CNAM (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts); she is on the Scientific Committees of the Regional Nature GeoParc of Normandy-Maine; a member of the National Council of the Order of Architects; of Better We, Better World, founded by the Dalaï Lama; of the Board of the Mangroove Foundation or Music at the Service of Biodiversity; of the Citizens’ Popular University of Roubaix; of the Advisory Board of Common Earth; of the Programme for a Regenerative Economy for the Commonwealth; of the MENE, the Movement of Entrepreneurs of the New Economy; of No More Business As Usual, and of the Archipelago of Symbiosis.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Jean Blaise, director of the Voyage à Nantes (“Journey to Nantes”) shares with us his vision of the role of art and artists in the public while the art market is gaining power and redefining the rules of the game.

Jean Blaise was born in Algiers in 1951. After studying literature at the University of Bordeaux, he became the director of the Cultural Centre of Saint Médard-en-Jalles (1976) then of the Centre of Cultural Action in Chelles (1977-79). Later he was in charge of Guadeloupe’s National Stage (1980-82), then founding Director of the Nantes Maison de la Culture (Culture Centre), from 1982-83; and since 1984, he has been Director of Research for the Centre of Cultural Development and Founder-Director of the Lieu Unique (a Nantes cultural centre), Director of the SPL (Local Public Society) Le Voyage à Nantes (Travelling to Nantes – a cultural Project for promoting the town of Nantes) and President of the National Mission for Art and Culture in the Public Sphere (MNACEP) at the Ministry of Culture (2014). Blaise has also been the creator of numerous cultural events: the Festival des Allumées (an all night festival in Nantes), the Festival of Hué in Vietnam, the Nuit Blanche in Paris (a sleepless night of culture in Paris) (2002 and 2005), and in 2007, the Biennial Estuary Festival, a contemporary art exhibition that takes place between Nantes and Saint-Nazaire.
Since 2014, he has acted as Artistic Director for the celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the town of le Havre.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Julien Grain, a scientist and researcher at the Laboratory of Astroparticles and Cosmology of the Institute of Space Astrophysics (CNRS – National Centre for Scientific Research – and the Paris University at Saclay) invites us to question our place in the Universe and the role we might play in it.

Julien Grain is an astrophysicist and cosmologist at the Institute of Space Astrophysics (CNRS – National Centre for Scientific Research – and the Paris University at Saclay). After his doctorate at Grenoble in 2006 on the subject of Black Holes, he directed his research towards the essential physics of the universe as well as the study of traces of luminosity from the Big Bang. This research was initially carried out in the AstroParticle & Cosmology Laboratories, and later at the Institute of Space Astrophysics which he joined in 2008. Julien Grain has published over fifty papers of academic research. He is the author, with A. Barrau, of a pedagogic paper on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (Dunod), and he contributed to the collective work The Form and Origin of the Universe (Dunod). Finally, he has taken part in numerous events for the vulgarisation of science, both in the written press (For Science, The Elephant), on the radio (The Scientific Method), or during events such as the Science Festival.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Laetitia Dosch, actress, author and stage director, shares with us her vision of the role of the artist in a world in transition. In her artistic practice, in an effort to fill the void created by the crisis of sensitivity, she brings to life the different points of view, which include those which go beyond the human race.

Trained as an actress, Laetitia Dosch grew up surrounded by animals and is also a writer. She wrote in particular a play with a horse, “Hate”. Her writing is inspired by her work as an actress, and is about putting yourself in the place of someone else.
In the case of working with different animal species, this might sometimes seem close to anthropomorphism, although that isn’t how she would define it, or at least, she does not feel that it is less real than putting yourself in the place of another human being.
She is currently working on a film about the trial of a dog and on plays and performances on the subject of vegetables and vegetation. The most recent is “Radio Trees”, a programme broadcast by trees to other trees.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this interview, Lionel Bordeaux, creative activist and former Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 21, questions the crisis of imagination and the roles that communicators, political leaders and artists can play in the construction of new narratives.

Lionel Bordeaux has spent 20 years in the world of political administration and French politics as Advisor in Communications (in the Prime Minister’s office, in the Ministry for Towns, and at the Town Hall of Paris). Later he was Vice-General Secretary in charge of communication and partnerships for the COP21 climate event. Since then, the environment has become the central topic of his professional activity and he has, for example, helped activists defend the world’s great natural areas (the Australian coral reefs, the Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada, etc.). At the present time he is leading a project to manufacture a football without using either plastic or animal leather in order to produce the ball that will be used in the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Lisa Garnier, naturalist, ecologist and scientific journalist specialising in biodiversity, shares with us her vision of our links with other life forms, from which we have deliberately cut ourselves off, but from which we still have many lessons to learn.

Lisa Garnier has a Doctorate in ecology and is a specialist in biodiversity and former journalist. She has written several books as well carried out numerous investigations and reports for the magazine, Ushuaïa Nature, and for the global expedition, Tara Oceans. Committed to the cause of biodiversity, she has been involved with the UNESCO Man & the Biosphere Programme, and worked in the Ministry for Sustainable Development and the National Museum of Natural History where she developed a number of participatory projects and edited the blog recording the observation of Nature by the general public, Vigie-Nature (Nature Watch). Never far from the plant world, which is her inspiration, she appeared as a botanist expert in the nature programmes of the television channel, Ushuaïa, and also in the series, The Secrets of Wild Flowers for Arte. Today she is working in a major industrial corporation (RTE) where she continues to address the subject of the diversity of living beings.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Magali Payen, expert in citizens’ campaigning, shares with us the history and commitments of her new climate movement: On est prêt ! (We are ready!), led by almost one hundred web creators with the aim of raising awareness, and changing and re-thinking our patterns of consumption for a sustainable future.

After her studies at the ESCP-EAP (European School of Management) and at the HEC Paris (School of Advanced Commercial Studies), Magali Payen moved into cinema production. She worked with the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus on a biographical project before joining Canal +. Her job there is in finance and strategy for the Cinema Division, and she is also participating in the development of StudioCanal in China and of Canal OTT, and is in charge of integrating the Studio Bagel productions within the company. Finally, she works in Canal + Production Management and is joining Olivier Courson to work on the creation of a European cinema studio.
Today she is putting her experience and her address book at the service of SAS Imagine 2050 and the On est Prêt! Association for whom she wants to develop programmes which will both inspire and have an impact.
She recently launched the campaign On est Prêt ! (We’re Ready!) with about a hundred other creators prepared to commit to climate issues. She is also the main supporter and co-producer of the video used to promote the “L’Affaire du Siècle” Petition (“The Century’s Main Issue” climate justice petition).

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

Marc-André Selosse, biologist, a specialist in botany and mycology, reveals the secrets of the invisible world that connects us all–the world of microbes. The mutual dependency inherent to all living things also invites us to question the way the sciences are organised and calls for a new approach, somewhere at the junction between the different fields of science.

Marc-André Selosse is Professor at the National Museum of Natural History and is Visiting Professor at the Universities of Gdansk (Poland) and Kunming (China.) His research focuses on ecology and the evolution of mutually beneficial associations (symbioses), and in particular the mycorrhizal symbioses, that is, the interaction between the fungi in the earth and the roots of plants. Vice-President of the French Botanical Society and Corresponding Member of the Academy of Agriculture, he is also the editor of four international scientific reviews. He has published more than 150 research papers and as many articles of scientific vulgarisation, all freely downloadable on line on his institutional site. He has published a work on the place of microbes in the world around us (Actes Sud) , “Never Alone: the microbes that build plants, animals and civilisations” (2017), and another on the tannins that are with us throughout our lives, “The Tastes and Colours of the World. A natural history of tannins, ecology and health”. (2019)

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this exchange, the economist Philippe Durance questions the role of ‘prospective’ (fr.) in the construction of a sustainable future and calls on us to adopt a systemic approach to analyse, evaluate and ultimately prevent the crisis.

As a Professor, Philippe Durance holds the Chair of Prospective and Sustainable Development at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (CNAM), and is also a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Research in the Sciences of Action (LIRSA). His work is principally concerned with systems of anticipation and social change.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this interview the writer Pierre Ducrozet questions the role of fiction in the post-truth era where we lack identification in the face of the ecological crisis.

Pierre Ducrozet (1982, Lyon) is the author of five novels: Requiem pour Lola rouge (2010, Vocation Award),((Requiem for Red Lola)), La vie qu’on voulait ((The Life We Wanted)) 2013, Eroica (2015), both published by Grasset, L’Invention des corps (Inventing Bodies) (Actes Sud), which won the Flore Prize 2017, and Le Grand Vertige (The Big Vertigo) (Actes Sud), an adventure novel set against a background of the challenge of climate change, to come out during this autumn’s publishing season. He writes a regular column for Libération, “Résidence sur la terre” ((Living on Earth)). He has co-written three books with Julieta Cánepa around their joint reflections on ecology.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

General Director of the Tara Ocean Foundation Romain Troublé shares with us the ambition of his foundation to recreate the link between the man and the sea through multidisciplinary encounters between scientists and artists aboard the Tara expedition ship.

Romain Troublé had a training in two areas and has a Masters Degree 2 in molecular biology at the Sorbonne University and a Masters at the HEC-Telecom Paris (Advanced Commercial Studies in Telecommunications, Paris). He has also been a professional helmsman at international level with, notably, two years’ in the French team of the America’s Cup in 2000 and 2003 in Auckland, New Zealand. From 2003 to 2006, he worked for a company specialising in polar logistics in the Arctic, the Antarctic and Siberia for sports or scientific expeditions to the poles as well as for the exploration of mammoths frozen in the permafrost. He has been in charge of operations for the Tara expeditions since 2004 and has been Director General of the Tara Ocean Foundation since 2009.
Romain has moreover been President of the Ocean Climate Platform since 2017, an organisation in which more than 70 institutions, foundations, corporations, collectivities and associations advocate for placing the Ocean at the heart of the climate and biodiversity debate.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this interview, a psychologist and psychotherapist Sophie Marinopoulos shares with us her take on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on our mental health, and particularly that of the children. She also underlines that children’s development and creativity is heavily influenced by their relation to nature.

Sophie Marinopoulos is a Psychologist and Psychoanalyst, specialising in issues relating to childhood and the family, and is the author of a Ministerial Report on a National Strategy for a Healthy Culture, as well as of numerous books on the family. She is the Co-Founder, together with Henri Trubert, of the publisher, Les Liens qui Libèrent.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this interview, biologist and ornithologist Stéphane Durand shares his take on the transition and the ambition behind the editorial collection “Mondes sauvages” (Wild Worlds) that he directs.

Biologist, Ornithologist and Journalist, Stéphane Durand is also a scientific advisor for the cinema. He has in particular worked with Jacques Perrin and co-written the films « Le Peuple migrateur » [The Migratory People], « Les Ailes de la nature » [The Wings of Nature], « Voyageurs du ciel » [Travellers of the Sky], « Océans » [Oceans] and « Les Saisons » [The Seasons]. He has directed the collection « Mondes Sauvages » [“Wild Worlds”] for Actes Sud, in which his most recent work has been published, « 20 000 ans ou la grande histoire de la nature » [20,000 Years or Nature’s Great Story] which retraces the path of a History of France, away from human beings, or rather, parallel to them. He helps us discover Nature’s fascinating evolution and adaptations as well as her formidable profusion.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In her reflections on the subject of the ecological transition, Sophie Swaton finds herself at the crossroads between two complementary disciplines: economics and philosophy. She describes a model in which the mechanisms of an economic policy must be rethought if they are to serve social justice while accompanying and facilitating the transition.

Sophie Swaton is a Philosopher and Economist and responsible for research at the Institute of Geography and Sustainability in the University of Lausanne where she teaches and coordinates the Master in the Principles and Practice of Sustainability. She also presides the Zoein Foundation which she created to support initiatives of solidarity in the ecological transition process, both in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

The writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr invites us to rethink our interdependence and to place the notions of dignity and equality at the heart of the reflection on the geography of change.

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is a Senegalese writer. After following the curiculum at the Prytanée Military Academy of Saint-Louis, Sénégal, he pursued his study of humanities in France, first in a preparatory literary class then at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris. His novel, La Cale ((The Wedge)), received the Stéphane Hessel Prize for Young Francophone Writers. He has published three novels: Terre Ceinte ((A Circle Round the Earth)) (Présence Africaine, 2015 – Ahmadou Kourouma Prize 2015); Grand Prix for the Mixed-Race Novel 2015, Secondary Students’ Mixed-Race Prize 2015); Silence du Coeur ((The Silence of the Heart)) (Présence Africaine, 2017 – Museum of Immigration Prize 2018 ; World–Literature Prize, Festival of Extraordinary Travellers 2018); Mixed-Race Prize of the Readers of Saint-Denis de la Réunion 2018); De Purs Hommes ((Of Pure Men)) (Philippe Rey – Jimsaan, 2018).

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

The philosopher, Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux, thanks to her studies of African thinkers, proposes an epistemic break with the Western model of civilisation in which Man places himself outside and above the world of other living beings. She invites us to deconstruct the concepts of transition, the frontiers, both of the territory and the living world, and also the political mechanisms that govern them.

Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux is a Philosopher and Associate Researcher at the Paris 8 Faculty’s Laboratory for Studies and Research on Contemporary Logic and Philosophy. She is the author of African Philosophies (Présence africaine, 2013), awarded the Louis Marin Overseas Sciences Prize, and she co-directed the book Law and Colonisation (Bruylant, 2005). Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux is the scientific curator of the Fabrique de Souza – Cameroun (the de Souza Factory in the Cameroun), a place of investigation and experimentation which brings together scientists, artists, young entrepreneurs, jurists and farmers, so as to design and put into practice an active utopia, where the Human is thought of in terms of its relationship with other Living Beings. A former editor of the cultural pages of Jeune Afrique, Séverine Kodjo-Grandvaux currently works as a journalist with Le Monde.

Luma Days joined forces with Agir pour le Vivant as part of the Festival’s lunch-dialogues which took place between 24th and 30th of August in the mythical Hotel Nord Pinus in Arles. On this occasion, the Festival guests were invited to take part in a series of interviews around the issues of transition, the crisis of our imaginations, the new geography and the subject of responsibility.

In this conversation, Philippe Zaouati, Managing Director of Mirova reveals the new stakes of sustainable finance and explains what role this sector has to play in the transition.

Philippe Zaouati is Managing Director of Mirova, an asset management company specializing in sustainable investment, which he created within Natixis in 2014, recognized as one of the pioneers of green and sustainable finance. After a career in various financial institutions, including Caisse des Dépôts and Crédit Agricole, notably as an expert in quantitative management, head of international distribution and head of marketing and communication, he has devoted himself for ten years to the development of responsible investment.
Author of several books including “Green finance begins in Paris” in 2018 and “Sustainable finance: ringing in a second chance” in 2020, he has contributed to market and regulatory developments in France and Europe. Successively Chairman of the Responsible Investment Committees of AFG and EFAMA, member of the high-level expert group on sustainable finance at the European Commission in 2018, co-founder and Chairman of the Finance for Tomorrow initiative, member of the One Planet Lab, group of experts created by the President of the French Republic, he has notably contributed to the development of responsible investment labels and transparency standards on climate. Since 2015, he has been particularly involved in the development of impact investing, particularly in natural capital.
Involved in public debate, Philippe Zaouati contributed to the writing of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential program on the environment, before being the referent of La République en Marche in Paris from 2017 to 2018. He is co-founder and President of the think tank Osons le Progrès which aims to be a laboratory of progressive ideas.
Philippe Zaouati is also the author of several novels, including “Les refus de Grigori Perelman”, the English translation of which will be published by the American Mathematical Society, and more recently “Applaudissez-moi !”.
Philippe Zaouati is a graduate of the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (ENSAE) and a member of the Institute of French Actuaries. He teaches sustainable finance at Sciences Po.

Just after the lockdown, Caroline Bernard, Basile Le Cléac’h and Adrien Julliard give us their thoughts and ideas on the process of In Vivo research and demonstration as well as on the new building of the ENSP (National School of Photography), while examining a number of related subjects: the state of vigilance or watchfulness, hospitality, the interruption in teaching programmes, the role of the artist, the phenomenon of images going viral…
This conversation highlights the issue of the Commons and Care which are at the centre of their preoccupations as citizens, artists or teachers: how can we reconnect with the essential in a different temporality, in fact, how can we take care of others while still attempting to re-think the world and to shift the boundaries?

Caroline Bernard
Doctor in Aesthetics, Science and Artistic Technologies, specialising in Fine Arts and Photography at Paris 8 University, Caroline Bernard is an artist and has taught at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie (National School of Photography) since 2015, where she has also directed the Laboratory of Image Prospectives. A former scientific adviser to the Haute école d’art et de design (Advanced School of Art and Design) (HEAD) in Geneva, Switzerland, since 2007 she has also been teaching at the École supérieure d’arts appliqués, (School of Applied Arts) (CEPV) in Vevey, Switzerland. She is also Associate Professor at the School of Visual and Media Arts (EAVM) at the Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM, Canada).

École nationale supérieure de la photographie
Founded in 1982 in Arles, the ENSP is the only Art School in France exclusively devoted to photography. It is a public administrative body for higher education and functions under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture. The principal mission of its three-year course is to give photographic creators and directors both a solid theoretical knowledge as well as full technical training in photography. The new school, which lies just opposite the Parc des Ateliers (Workshops Park—former Railway Repair Yard), was designed by the architect Marc Barani and the first students took up residence there in 2020. The ENSP has been developing new ideas and encouraging a wide range of practices and approaches to photography and the image. It is both a place for experimentation and innovations as well us a place for research and creation but also a democratic place open to all. Today’s Director is Marta Gili.

En conversation avec :
Maria Finders, curator, Luma Days, Co-Artistic Director, Atelier Luma, Luma Arles
Florence Maille, producer of Luma Days, Luma Arles

“Françoise Sémiramoth carries Caravaggio within her. She is herself, quite simply, the Creole Caravaggio, thus demonstrating that down the ages and in spite of the different gender, there is a secret filiation that resists all definitions and reason.” An extract from the text which appeared in 2020, “Françoise Sémiramoth cannibalises Caravaggio” by Maryse Condé. The writer was invited to Luma Days in 2018.
Françoise Semiramoth and Maryse Condé were invited to take part in the It’s Urgent! installation, presented in Arles during the summer of 2020. During this conversation with Maja Hoffmann and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Françoise Sémiramoth talks about her meeting and exchanges with Maryse Condé, but also about her admiration for Caravaggio and the historical and geographical re-interpretation of his paintings in the “Creole Caravaggio”, in which the creative medium used is silkscreen printing.

Françoise Sémiramoth
Born in 1968 in Guadeloupe, she lives and works in Marseille.
After a short period at the École du Louvre (the Louvre School) in Paris in the 90s, in the year 2000, Françoise Sémiramoth, an artist originally from Guadeloupe, settled in Marseille where she exhibited her work at the Galerie du Tableau in 2005. In 2006, she met Maryse Condé and Françoise Donadieu with whom she established strong ties of friendship but also creative ties in the fields of the visual arts and also of writing. She collaborated too with Gilles Benistri, an artist from Marseille. A multifaceted artist, her preferred medium is painting, and this has lead her to researching various different pictorial languages, going from the shape to the colour and back again, until she has ended up with a fascination for the static image on paper, canvas or wall. In time, her work and her artistic expression were directed towards a form of connection with, amongst other things, narrative figuration, and abstraction (Bridet Riley, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Alberts) but also to the painting of Matisse and Caravaggio. Different exhibitions, both in France and abroad, have marked her progress: in Arles, Marseille, Paris, Nantes, Angers, Brussels, Dubaï, Cardiff and Guadeloupe… Her works have been acquired by the Frac Paca (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain – Regional Funds of Contemporary Art, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, The Charles Nègre Mediatheque in Grasse and by private collectors. Françoise Sémiramoth also works alongside some of the numerous structures that propose artistic projects linked to the arts for different audiences.

En conversation avec :
Maja Hoffmann, founder and President Luma Foundation, Luma Westbau, Luma Arles
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, Core Group, Luma Arles

Jakob Kudsk Steensen was invited to take part in the It’s Urgent! installation, presented in Arles during the summer of 2020. During this conversation, he discusses his experience at a local hypermarket in Arles and his desire to work on a different scale for the installations which he creates and to have a more poetic vision and a more intense relationship with the materials. He is interested in the way our emotions, the ecosystems and the different species are connected, both in time and space.

In his work, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Danish multimedia artist, brings past, present and future landscapes and ecosystems to life thanks to his micro and macro view of the environment, and through the lens of virtual reality, based on a long process of research in the field and with specialists in species conservation. He was artist resident at Luma Arles from January to June 2020.

En conversation avec :
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, Core Group, Luma Arles
Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, senior Curator, Luma Arles

Julien Creuzet was invited to take part in the It’s Urgent! installation, held in Arles in the summer of 2020. During this conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Julien Creuzet talks about his filiation with the poet and philosopher from Martinique, Édouard Glissant, through his definition of the concept of “opacity”. He also explains his work on posters, his interest for the multiplicity of images and the way shapes can be connected so as to enable him to reinvent different forms of storytelling. Amongst the great figures who have inspired his work, he talks about his exchanges with the linguist, philosopher and trumpet player, originally from Martinique, Jacques Coursil, who died last June. Discussions around the semantics of the words “blackness” and “negritude” but also around his condition as a black individual. Finally, he ends on the dream of his unfulfilled project: the idea of a breath without end.

Julien Creuzet is an artist, video maker, performer and poet. He spent most of his childhood in Martinique. These first years in the Caribbean, at the crossroads between the African, Indian and European cultures, have impregnated an oeuvre where the mixture of visions and imaginations has a central place. Through the environments made up of composite assemblies, he creates footbridges beween these constructs and Elsewhere, between the social realities of here and the forgotten stories of minorities.

En conversation avec :
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, Core Group, Luma Arles

Sara Sadik was invited to take part in the It’s Urgent! installation, presented in Arles during the summer of 2020. During the conversation she had with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sara Sadik explained the way she works around the portrayals of the “young Arab” from the suburban housing estates and his masculinity. Her artistic approach is developed in the workshops with adolescents from the different neighbourhoods of Marseille in which the stereotypes are deconstructed and where imaginary tales are built up with them. In her practice she mixes video, musical performance, installation and photography and finds her source of inspiration in the popular culture of the suburbs while always questioning the way it is portrayed.

Born in 1994 in Bordeaux, she lives and works in Marseille.
Sara Sadik obtains her DNSEP in 2018 at the École des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Her work has been presented in various group exhibitions, including 221A (Vancouver, 2017), Karma International (Zurich, 2017), “Waiting for Omar Gatlato” at the Wallach Gallery – University of Columbia (New York, 2019), “Désolé” at Galerie Edouard Manet (Gennevilliers, 2020), “Disappearing Berlin” at the Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin, 2020) and “Intérieur, pluie” at Galerie Crèvecoeur (Paris, 2020). Sara Sadik has presented performances at the Festival Do Disturb at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2019) and at the Festival Parallèle à la Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille, 2020).

En conversation avec :
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, Core Group, Luma Arles

At the end July 2020, Europe was coming out of many months of Covid-19 confinement that brought with it as much optimism about getting back to “normal” as it did revelations of deeply imbedded inequalities and the need for social reform. This is the backdrop that prompted an exchange between Richard Sennett, Maja Hoffmann, and Hans Ulrich Obrist on what it means to start an art-based institution in and for the 21st century.

Richard Sennett currently serves as Senior Advisor to the United Nations on its Programme on Climate Change and Cities. He is Senior Fellow at the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and Visiting Professor of Urban Studies at MIT. Over the course of the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labour, and social theory. His last book Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018.

In conversation with :
Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, Core Group, Luma Arles
Maja Hoffmann, founder & President of The Luma Foundation, Founder of Luma Arles