[Winter 2022]

The title might seem paradoxical, as the artists brought together for this issue’s thematic section are all defenders and lovers of nature and spend a good deal of time in it. But what their works reveal is a “naturality” thoroughly permeated by human activity and entirely shaped by it, implying that its fate is entirely in our hands.

GENEVIÈVE CHEVALIER
Mirement/Towering : La Ménagerie et L’Herbier
The many installations and projections of Mirement/Towering present sites of research on nature. These majestic institutions and magnificent gardens, dating from colonization times, demonstrate that nature is well and truly an affair of culture, but also of seizure of the world. Models of knowledge are intrinsically linked to modes of exploitation of nature.
with an essay by Sylvain Campeau

THOMAS KNEUBÜHLER
Alpine Signals
Alpine Signals hunts down the tall digital-transmission towers that disrupt the picturesque landscapes of the Swiss-Italian Alps. The serial, iterative aspect of this work is deployed in the form of a book. We can therefore trace, page after page, a single marker of contemporary life within impressive natural scenes in which buildings and structures already bespeak human presence.
with an essay by Louis Perreault

ANDREAS RUTKAUSKAS
Refuge: After the Fire
The project After the Fire finds a perfectly appropriate home in an exhibition space open to the surrounding forest. We are immersed in images of catastrophe and then those of forest regeneration. Fire becomes a component in the natural cycle of life. The dread of fire gives way to the need for more complete knowledge and better management of forest resources.
with an essay by Franck Michel

  
[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 119 – AGAINST NATURE ]
[ Complete article and more images, in digital version, available here: CV119 – Editorial + Introduction ]