Environment, aesthetic engagement and public

International Colloquium
« Environment, aesthetic engagement and public
sphere :
the stakes in landscape”
May, 9, 10 and 11, 2007
Paris
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Landscape planning and manufacture is one of the very important contemporary issues
at stake in the relation between nature and society. However, landscape is of complex
approach; it mixes social sciences and bio-physico-chemical sciences, a spatial problematic
and a problematic of planning as well as a relational approach to the milieu. It is in this sense
that it seems best placed to call on the different scientific dimensions of the environment. On
the social level, complexity is also very high: processes that create landscapes are daily,
ordinary processes related to vernacular practice, or else artists’ or experts’ processes
stemming from landscapers. Sometimes, the mobilizations of local associations, born in
opposition to large planning projects, give birth to new landscaping practices in the fields of
the environment or even of urban planning and quality of life. The processes of landscape
creation raise numerous questions: there is the issue of the participation of local residents in
the creation of landscape; then, the issue of the legitimacy and of the “sustainability” of
practices and experiments conducted within this framework; finally the issue of the adhesion
of the populations to the transformations carried out by institutions whose concern, from now
on, is to integrate the different usages of the environment, and to take into consideration a
global and ecosystemic environmental problematic.
In this context, the landscape is an important term, not only because it allows us to
envisage the democratization of planning and quality of life issues (The European Convention
on Landscape, 2000), but also because it allows us to confront and associate the aesthetic and
ecological dimensions of environmental transformations. This is all the more important in that
the aesthetic dimension, avoided by environmental research projects, allows us to take into
consideration both the singular and collective experience of forms and the forms of planning,
which address considerations of collective taste and of choices of society, as well as the
modes of appropriation and of transformation of our environment. Such a set of issues aims at
promoting reflection on the reappropriation of life milieus, with a view towards
environmental democracy. This is an opening for researchers in social sciences and, more
generally, for environmentalists, that allows for a new interrogation of the relations of
individuals to the collective, and of the issues of environmental responsability and ethics.
Indeed, the issue of aesthetic appraisal raises the question of valorization of places, of
landscapes, and of environments. Thus, aesthetics, a dimension ignored by environmental
research, is at the core of this colloquium. We will question the aesthetic perspective in its
relation to the environment following three orientations:
1) How is the judgment of taste integrated into public action and, in particular, how
do public environmental policies, specially landscaping policies, take it into
account? As for public policies dealing with landscape, we can question the value
of approaches that are often very formal. Does the landscape take into
consideration the entire value of the aesthetic relation? Besides, and inversely in a
symmetric manner, does it integrate all the dimensions of ecological problematics:
doesn’t landscape evade some ecological functions (for instance, air and
atmosphere dynamics, and therefore atmospheric pollution)?
2) On the artistic side, we will more specifically focus on art that dedicates itself to
ecological issues. Ecological art is the label applied to a specifically American art
that has been mixing ecological ethics, science, and public art since the late sixties.
Eclipsed for a long time, ranged under Land Art, or disguised under the generic
term of environmental art, artists of the first generation, such as Patricia Johanson,
the Harrisons, Nancy Holt, or Miele Ukeles have nevertheless developed an
outstanding urban artistic praxis between pragmatism and aesthetics, between
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efficiency and effectiveness, landscape architecture and green sculpture, defined
late in the early nineties by Barbara Matilsky. Mel Chin, Mark Dion, Viet Ngo,
Buster Simpson joined this group without any manifesto, for whom ecology is
above all an ethics and a science, more than it is a politics.
3) Last, associative mobilizations have lately powerfully invested the field of the
environment. They have, for example, transformed our vision of living beings and
brought about change in the representations of the animal and the vegetable
kingdoms; we may say that the ecological problematic has issue has globally upset
the representations and practices linked to the environment. Individual and
collective aesthetic experience, as well as the judgment of taste, have evolved in
latter years towards a renewed preoccupation for the environment. Symmetrically,
we observe that local, national or international associative mobilizations resort to
aesthetics in order to justify their stand on the environment: they use the argument
of “the impossible overcoming” of the culture/nature separation, they evoke the
necessity of preserving Nature from human activities (“nature reserves” or
“national parks”) or, even, hybridation at work (monsters are around). Besides, the
dramatization of the evolution of our relations to Nature shows that “the ecological
drama” includes a “tragic” feeling.
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A few keys will enable us to structure the questions and the debate during this
colloquium. To what extent do these renewed practices and representations of the
places and objects of nature partake of an enrichment of the public sphere and of room
for dialogue, of the political sphere therefore, of the common world and its ecological
components, consequently of the Earth, or, finally: do they take into consideration the
inhabitant’s space, i.e., territories of life and subjectivities? A last question bears on
the aesthetic perspective’s input to the sustainable character of the environment:
indeed, recent artistic approaches often favor the ephemeral. What is sustainable then,
and, can we think with Sue Spaid, a critic of ecological art, that the artistic process
itself calls for a new reading of the terms of sustainability: they are not in the object
but in the action models?
Within the framework of this briefly described reflection, which has been at the core of
our reflections for a few years, the LADYSS and the SET, supported by the French
Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development, and by the CNRS (the National Center
for Scientific Research), have decided to organize an international colloquium (bringing
together mainly Americans, British, Spaniards, Quebecois and French) and its
preparatory seminar. During the three sessions of this colloquium, the following themes
will be debated on a theoretical and empirical level:
1) Towards a sustainable landscape: from the aesthetic judgment to public action.
2) Art and landscape: towards a transformation of local ecologies.
3) Environmental mobilizations: reframing of the aesthetic experience.
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THE TARGETTED PUBLIC
These themes, aiming at bringing together researchers from different disciplines,
professionals (architects, urban planners, landscapists, etc.) as well as artists’ networks that
are already set up (Greenmuseum, Ecoartspace, Art Nature Project), enable us to take into
consideration the diverse aspects of a questioning on the role of aesthetics in the environment.
STEERING COMMITTEE
Nathalie Blanc, researcher in Geography at the CNRS (LADYSS UMR 7533), Jacques
Lolive, researcher in planning and political science at the CNRS, director at SET (UMR
5603), Sylvain Marty, manager at SET and Béatrice Moellic, manager at LADYSS.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Beside Jacques Lolive and Nathalie Blanc, promoters of the research program, it is made up
of the following researchers: Paul Ardenne, associate professor at Amiens, a specialist in
contemporary art; Arnold Berleant, emeritus professor at Long Island University (USA), a
specialist in environmental aesthetics and in environmental experience; Auguste Berque,
director of studies at EHESS, a geographer and orientalist, a specialist in landscape; Jean-Paul
Billaud, research director at the CNRS, a sociologist, a specialist in environmental politics,
director at LADYSS; Emily Brady, professor at Edinburgh (UK), a specialist in
environmental aesthetics; Jean-Pierre Cometti, professor at the Université de Provence;
philosopher, a specialist in the pragmatic theory in aesthetics; Christian Dautel, a professor at
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Angers, in charge of the “Art and Landscape” master; Cyria
Emelianoff, a geographer and a specialist in sustainable development at Université du Mans;
Yves Luginbuhl, research director in geography, president of the scientific council of the
program “Landscape and sustainable development” of the MEDD; Phil Macnaghten, a
sociologist at Lancaster University (UK), a specialist in environmental mobilizations; MarieVie Ozouf-Marignier, director of studies at EHESS, an historian specialist in the creation of
political territories; Bénédicte Ramade, a specialist in ecological art and jointly in charge of
the Ultra contemporain show (France Culture Radio); Julie Ramos, associate professor, Art
History, PARIS 1, CIRHAC – Institut d’art et d’archéologie Centre Michelet; John Urry,
professor at Lancaster University, a specialist in the sociology of nature and in environmental
changes.
Proposals need to be sent to Béatrice Moellic : [email protected]
Secrétaire Gestionnaire, site Nanterre
LADYSS Université de Paris 10
Bâtiment K 200, av de la République
92001 Nanterre cedex
Tel. 01 40 97 78 06
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PROCEDURE FOR SELECTION OF PAPERS
To the researchers and practitioners already engaged in this approach, we would like to
associate reflections and practices willing to join this field whose visibility and structuration is
what is at stake of today. Proposals can come from researchers, as research reviews, or from
artists, specially as slide shows or documentaries. Documents can be made available to the
public.
Schedule
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End of december, 2006: deadline for researchers to send their proposals, in the form of
a summary in French and English. Artists will send a biography and a summary about
the installation or the project they intend to present.
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February 15th 2007: selection of proposals by the members of the scientific committee
chosen according to corresponding themes.
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April 15th, 2007: reception of final proposals.
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May 9th,10th and 11th 2007 Colloquium “Environment, Aesthetic Engagement and
Public Space: What is at Stake in the Landscape”.
SUBSCRIPTION AND PARTICIPATION FEES
Subscription fees are defined as follows:
- 3 days set price including meals: €200 for researchers and institutionnals; €60 for noninstitutionnals and students.
- Price per day: €80/day for researchers and institutionnals; €30/day for non-institutionnals
and students.
- €100 participation fee will be required from speakers in order to cover publication and
valorization fees.
PROJECTED PROGRAM
Colloquium “Environment, Aesthetic Engagement and Public Sphere: What is at Stake
in the Landscape”May 9,10 and 11, 2007, Ministry of Research, Paris.
Towards a sustainable landscape: from the aesthetic judgment to public action
With Yves Luginbuhl (geographer), Emily Brady (philosopher) moderators and with the
participation of: Augustin Bercque (geographer), Arnold Berleant (philosopher), Jean-Louis
Cometti (philosopher), Michel Gariepy (planner), Gerard Monediaire (lawyer), Jessica
Makowiak (lawyer), Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier (geographer) etc.
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Art and landscape: towards a transformation in local ecologies
With Paul Ardenne (critic), Stephanie Smith (Commissioner of Exhibitions) moderators and
with the participation of: Gilles Bruni (artists), Tilmann Latz (landscaptist), Noelle Pujol
(artist), Hermann Prigann (artist), Bénédicte Ramade (critic), Jeroe van Westen (artist) etc.
Environmental Mobilizations: reframing of the aesthetic experience
With Cyria Emelianoff (geographer), Phil Macnaghten, John Urry (sociologists) moderators
and with the participation of: Christine Alfsen (Unesco), Baird Callicott (philosopher),
Thomas Elmqvist (ecologist), Clare Palmer (philosopher), Jean-Paul Thibaud and Rachel
Thomas (planners), representative of associations (of Barcelona, Bilbao...)etc.
INDICATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marc Antrop, 2006, Sustainable landscapes : contradiction, fiction or utopia ?, Landscapes
and Urban Planning, vol. 75, issues 3-4 (Landscapes and sustainability), 187-197.
Paul Ardenne, 2002, Un art contextuel. Création artistique en milieu urbain, en situation
d’intervention et de participation, Paris, Flammarion.
Paul Ardenne, 2004, La ville objet d’art, matériau et medium, L’observatoire des politiques
culturelles, Ce que les artistes font à la ville 26, 26-28.
Hannah Arendt, 1991 (éd. orig. 1982), Juger. Sur la philosophie politique de Kant, trad.
Myriam Revault d’Allonnes, followed by two interpretative assays by Ronald Beiner et
Myriam Revault d’Allonnes, Paris, Seuil, coll. Libre examen.
Emily Brady, 2003, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment, Edinburgh and Tuscaloosa:
Edinburgh University Press and University of Alabama Press.
Arnold Berleant, 1992, The aesthetics of environment, Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Augustin Berque, 2000, Ecoumène, introduction à l’étude des milieux humains, Paris, Belin,
coll. Mappemonde.
Jean-Pierre Cometti, 2001, Art, modes d’emploi. Esquisses d’une philosophie de l’usage, La
Lettre volée, essais.
John Dewey, 1980 (1e éd. 1934), Art as Experience, New York, Perigee Books.
The European Landscape Convention, 2000 http://www.coe.int/t/e/Cultural_Cooperation/Environment/Landscape/
Emmanuel Kant, 2000, Critique de la faculté de juger (1ère éd. 1787), Traduction,
présentation, bibliographie et chronologie par Alain Renaut, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion.
Yves Luginbühl, 2000, « Paysages vernaculaires et paysages savants », in : Michel Racine
(Eds), Créateurs de jardins et de paysages en France du XVIe au XXe siècle, Actes Sud.
Jessica Makowiak, 2004, Esthétique et droit, Limoges, Lgdj.
Alain Nadaï, 2004, Degré zero : portée et limites de la théorie de « l’artialisation » dans la
perspective d’une politique du paysage, contribution au colloque du CEMAGREF, De la
connaissance des paysages à l’action paysagère, Bordeaux, 2-4 décembre 2004.
Sylvie Rimbert, 1973, Les paysages urbains, Paris, A. Colin.
Alain Roger, 1997, Court traité du paysage, Paris, Gallimard.
Richard Shusterman, 1999, La fin de l’expérience esthétique, trad. Jean-Pierre Cometti,
Fabienne Gaspari, Anne Combarnous, Publications de l’Université de Pau.
Sue Spaid, 2005, Ecovention, Current Art to Transform Ecologies, Contemporary Arts
Center, Cincinnati (Ohio).
Sue Spaid, 2003, A political life. Arendtian aesthetics end open systems, Ethics and the
Environment, 8 (1).
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Artists’ websites:
Gilles Bruni : <http://www.bruni-babarit.fr>
Hermann Prigann : www.terranova.ws/
Jeroen Van Westen : www.jeroenvanwesten.nl/
Art +nature generalistic websites:
www.greenmuseum.org/
art-nature-project.ouvaton.org/
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