How to Reclaim the Earth?

The simultaneous ecological and social crises, within our extractive society that is at the end of its tether, has highlighted the interdependence of beings and their surroundings. Faced with the need for new ways of acting and caring for the Earth, can we truly reclaim it? Can the Earth reclaim itself? Or is it the Earth that reclaims us?

In the group exhibition Reclaim the Earth curated by Daria de Beauvais at the Palais de Tokyo, artists develop new relationships with the environment, making us aware that we are not only “facing the landscape”, or simply “on Earth,” but are rather “amongst” them, thus causing a shift in a Eurocentric and Anthropocentric vision.

For ecofeminist thinking, and other forms of thought, exploring what connects us to the Earth requires questioning relationships of power, and the nature of the bonds of subsistence that exist between places and those who inhabit them. By questioning the relationships of domination between beings, these thoughts generate other ways of being in the world that stretch beyond existing dualisms.

This station explores the correspondence between struggles for the recognition of the Earth, and the collective desire to rally forces of the pluriverse so as to better inhabit it. Continuing the work done by the Brain Space Laboratory, and in particular the various stations, Station 15 (Become Flesh, How to Change Paradigms in Entangled Worlds?), Stations 18 (Cartographies of Us#1 & 2, Rituel·le·s) and 21 (Caring for the Land), Station 22 How to Reclaim the Earth? sketches the outlines of a world in common and of cosmomorphic solidarities.

 


Works under study

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Amakaba x Olaniyi Studio, Nono: Soil Temple, 2022. Courtesy of the artists
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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asinnajaq, Rock Piece (Ahuriri Edition), 2018. Courtesy of the artist

 

 

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Megan Cope, Untitled (Death Song), 2020. Courtesy of the artist & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Kate Newby, The edge of the earth, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept (Paris)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Kate Newby, you wish.  you wish, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept (Paris)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Kate Newby, it makes my day so much better if i speak to all of you (detail), 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Art : Concept (Paris)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Solange Pessoa, Cathedral, 1990-2003. Courtesy of the artist & Mendes Wood DM (Bruxelles, New York, Sao Paulo)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 - 04.09.2022)
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Judy Watson with Tor Maclean, lost islands of the seine with temperature chart, 2022 ; Judy Watson burrum riber with dead tree, 2022 (from left to the right). Courtesy of the artists & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 – 04.09.2022).
Photo : Aurélien Mole 

 

 

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Judy Watson with Tor Maclean, Cheryl Leavy, Madeleine King, Ebony Wolmott, Dot Watson, Rani Carmichael & Dhana Merrit, moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, freshwater mussel shells, net, spectogram, 2022. Courtesy of the artists & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 – 04.09.2022).
Photo : Aurélien Mole 

 

 

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Judy Watson with Tor Maclean, canoe creek, humbug reach, black casuarina, 2022. Courtesy of the artists & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 – 04.09.2022).
Photo : Aurélien Mole

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Judy Watson, red spine (bunya) and kangaroo grass, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 – 04.09.2022).
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

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Judy Watson, rivers of the gulf with casuarina, 2022. Courtesy of the artist & Milani Gallery (Brisbane)
In the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo (15.04.2022 – 04.09.2022).
Photo : Aurélien Mole

 

 

Speakers

Linda Boukhris
La racialisation de l’espace dans le plantationocène
Geographer, lecturer at University Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne

Marie Fleury
Plantes et chamanisme : usages et symbolique
Ethnobotanist at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Director of the MNHN office in French Guyana

Barbara Glowczewski
Pourquoi réveiller les esprits des lieux ?
Research director at the CNRS, member of the social anthropology laboratory of the Collège de France, teacher of environmental studies at the EHESS

Ariel Salleh
On Holding Body and Country
Visiting Professor in Humanities, Nelson Mandela University and Scientific advisor for the exhibition Reclaim the Earth 
with Margot Lauwers, Associate researcher at CRESEM, University of Perpignan, translator, high school English teacher

Marine Yzquierdo
Changer le droit pour changer notre rapport au vivant
Lawyer and board member of Notre Affaire à Tous

Benedikte Zitouni and Alice Mortiaux
Comment les modernes tiennent à la Terre : croisement de deux enquêtes
Benedikte Zitouni, Professor and sociologist at the University Saint-Louis in Brussels and Alice Mortiaux, Narrator, visual artist and researcher in Art & Art Sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the École de Recherche Graphique (Brussels)

Moderation
Anabelle Lacroix and Anaïs Roesch
Research fellows for Station 22

Works under study

Selection of works presented in the exhibition Reclaim the Earth, from April 14 to September 4, 2022 at the Palais de Tokyo
→ consult the Palais de Tokyo website

Amakaba x Olaniyi Studio, Nono: Soil Temple, 2022

asinnajaq, Rock Piece (Ahuriri Edition), 2018

Megan Cope, Untitled (Death Song), 2020

Kate Newby, The edge of the earth ; you wish. you wish. ; it makes my day so much better if i speak to all of you., 2022

Solange Pessoa, Cathedral, 1990-2003

Judy Watson, lost islands of the seine with temperature
chart
; burrum river with dead tree ; red spine (bunya) and kangaroo grass ; rivers of the gulf with casuarina ; canoe creek, humbug reach, black casuarina ; moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, freshwater mussel shells, net, spectogram, 2022

Study days

Conception Nathalie Ergino, Hélène Meisel, Anabelle Lacroix

Friday July 1st, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday July 2nd, 2022, from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Centre Pompidou-Metz

& online on Zoom
from 2 p.m. on July 1st
and from 9.30 a.m. on July nd

All interventions are available in French and English by simultaneous translation, in person and online. 

Friday July 1st
Participate in the Friday Zoom meeting, link here
Meeting ID : 878 7969 5552
Secret code : 679642

Saturday July 2nd
Participate in the  Saturday Zoom meeting, link here
Meeting ID : 824 8265 1241
Secret code : 477370

Participants

Daria de Beauvais, Senior Curator, Palais de Tokyo

Tiphaine Calmettes, Artist

Nathalie Ergino, Artistic Director of IAC, Villeurbanne

Jérôme Grivel, Artist

Pierre Montebello, Philosopher, modern and contemporary Philosophy Distinguished Professor at Université of Toulouse

Jean-Baptiste Perret, Artist

Stéphanie Raimondi, Artist

Vahan Soghomonian, Artist

The complete list of participants of the Brain Space Laboratory is on the website PARTICIPANTS section, here