Symposium 2024
July 26th - August 25th 2024
Inhabiting the World
Art and Ecology
The 42nd Symposium d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul (Quebec, Canada) will take place in 2024 with the theme Inhabiting the World: Art and Ecology. We invite artists in the visual arts to submit a proposal to create a project in one or a combination of the following media: drawing, painting, photography, video, sculpture, installation, digital technologies, sound art and natural elements (earth, wood, water, etc.). The projects can be produced indoors in a studio or outdoors on a chosen site according to the needs of the projects.
Inhabiting the World: The Environmental Context
No issue is more important today than the future of the planet. For many years, numerous scientific reports and increasingly frequent extreme climate phenomena have warned us about the Earth’s state of imbalance and that of the ecosystems to which it is home. To the already present climate problems – greenhouse gases, melting ice and the rise in sea levels – will come others, imminently, brought about by the disruption of planetary ecosystems.
The art world is not oblivious of this fundamental concerns of our time. On this topic, the art historian Paul Ardenne has written in his book Un Art écologique that “the ecological stakes today are high. They concern the survival of the human race on the planet. Unless attended to, these stakes raise the question of whether or not this same human species will remain a part of “Mother Earth,” if possible not under apocalyptic conditions. Fight against environmental disaster? Understood: we must, and right now.” Bruno Latour, in an article dating from 2015, also writes: “the ecological question is not just environmental, but also concerns habitation, ways of life and of survival, and the overall organization.” These comments pinpoint more closely what is understood here as “Inhabiting the World,” meaning the various ways of inhabiting the milieux in which we live and the manner in which we make use of our resources.
This is what we mean by “inhabiting the world”, namely the different ways we inhabit our living environments, the ways we use and rely on natural resources, the values guiding our lifestyles.
The Role of Art
Alongside science analysis and protests by environmentalists, what roles does art have in this fundamental concern of the twenty-first century? Can art promote the awareness needed by Earth’s present state of imbalance?
As Valérie Belmokhtar points out in her book L’artiste et le vivant, “On the face of it, art can’t do much of anything concrete about the rise in sea levels, air pollution or the disappearance of species.” But while the scope of art is not concrete, it has just the same an immense power, by representing, symbolizing and giving form to visions of the world. In the past, art has shaped the face of cultures and civilizations, witnessing their evolution. Can art contribute to a change in people’s mindset, to raising awareness in a way that can modify our relations with the environment and with the life forms which inhabit it.
The goal of this theme is to highlight the contribution of artistic creation, and more precisely the ability of artists to take on a political role (denouncing, criticizing, shining light on what takes place in silence), to employ art’s ability to conjure up and its metaphorical and poetic powers, to give form to the faces of dystopia (a dysfunctional world) and of utopia (the world we wish for), to leave its mark on our imaginations by influencing the inner image we have of nature and the living, individually and collectively.
About Ecology
The word “ecology” refers to the idea of relations between elements in an ecosystem. For instance, in the biological sense, it refers to the relations between living organisms and their environments. In the sociological sense, it refers to the relations between human beings and their socioeconomic environments. In the political sense, it refers to activism and to the goals of protecting the environment and promoting change in human habits in consideration of the needs of all ecosystems (eg. against single-crop farming).
Ecological art practices can be defined in a number of ways and orients itself toward different aspects of human activities. It can denounce, criticize, shed light on things
Guidance and Suggested Avenues of Approach
This guidance and these suggested avenues of approach are not exhaustive. Other topics, motifs and themes may be addressed, as long as they have a close connection with the general theme outlined above.
The World and Its Ecosystems
Each ecosystem on the planet has its own particularities and all are interconnected.
How to bring out these particularities and their conditions of existence?
- the vegetable ecosystem: flora and botany;
- the ecosystem of living things: humans and fauna (land and sea animals);
- the geological ecosystem: the mineral world (raw materials, natural resources);
- balance and imbalance in ecosystems’ interrelations;
- etc.
Ecological Artistic Practices: Natural Materials and Sites
An ecological art’s perspective modifies the artist’s relations with the materials used and the artist’s and artwork’s relations with the natural site. Ecological art promotes:
- the co-presence of humans and nature in which the artist works in, with and for nature;
- the use of natural materials (wood, earth, water, etc.) taken from a site without destroying the site or transforming it in a lasting manner;
- ephemeral artworks (an outdoor site) which leave no lasting trace of their momentary presence (a “gentle” presence);
- the use of found and salvaged materials to give them a second life;
- etc.
The “Anthropocene” Epoch
Humanity’s evolution is delineated into different prehistoric and historic periods, each with its own name. The word “anthropocene” has been proposed to describe the current historical period, characterized by a strong human footprint and sweeping transformation of the planet:
- identify and analyse one or more signs of the human footprint on the planet;
- examine critically the effects of this footprint;
- reduce or mitigate the human footprint;
- etc.
Nature and Living Things: Indigenous Peoples’ Vision
Indigenous peoples have developed relations with Nature and Living Things which are very different from the Western capitalist perspective. As an Indigenous artist, how do you conceive or experience:
- the place of human beings in the natural world;
- the use of natural resources;
- Nature and spirituality;
- etc.
Resistance: For Tomorrow’s World
The planetary situation today demands major changes in our ways of life. These changes cannot happen without collective awareness and transformative social and political action. How can art valorise or encourage:
- resistance to ways of life which destroy planetary ecosystems?
- changing and transforming habits and mindsets?
- support for biodiversity?
- the dream that another world is possible?
How to inhabit the world differently?
This is the terrain that the theme Inhabiting the World – Art and Ecology of the 42nd Symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul proposes you explore from 26 July to 25 August 2024.
Paul Ardenne, Un Art écologique, Création plasticienne et anthropocène (Brussels: Éditions Le Bord de l’Eau, 2018), 7.
Bruno Latour, “Rien ne peut plus arriver aux modernes,” Art Press 428 (December 2015): 56.
Valérie Belmokhtar, L’artiste et le vivant: Pour un art écologique, inclusif et engagé Paris: Éditions Pyramyd, 2022, 12.
