Charlotte Charbonnel, Jérémy Gobé, Karine Bonneval, Cécile Beau
Curators: Pauline Lisowski and Fabienne Leloup

At a time when climate change is a major issue that requires us to rethink our ways of life, artists invite us to understand scientific research and the future of life through sensitivity. Environmental issues, natural processes, microcosms at the scale of an environment, sometimes in relation to scientists, they are witnesses, inventors and create works that propose experiments. They make the state of our environment, in turmoil, perceptible.
While nature's life processes fascinate and inspire, they also provoke emotions, revive memories, stories and lead to the feeling of one's own body. From this contact comes the understanding of the plant, its way of being and transforming itself according to the places and conditions in which it is found.
The invisible, the beyond is discovered through physical experience, listening and touch. From a fragment, a natural material or a collected element, the artists, sometimes in collaboration with scientists, show us how to see and listen to nature's time.
Thus, the works are each a world where you can take a look around, take the time to understand a scientific discovery or let yourself be surprised and whet your curiosity about the natural resources to be preserved. They offer moments of contemplation, of exploration at the same time visual, sonorous and tactile. They make us aware of natural phenomena.

RRR sound rhizotrons
Listening with plant roots: what music will the roots choose? In what direction will they grow?

This piece, inspired by recent work by M. Gagliano showing that roots are sensitive to sound, is an attempt to enter into a dialogue with the root systems of different plants.
I began by constructing a tripartite growth container, inspired by the rhizotrons used in laboratories to observe root growth.
Using three tubes filled with hydrophilic gel, I played three different types of music in the growth chamber, to see if they would attract or repel the roots: an offer to perhaps get them moving. The spectator perceives this 'movement' by the direction of their growth, attracted or repelled by certain melodies or frequencies. It's a living piece in constant evolution, where the audience sits down, listens to the music proposed to the plants, at the same time as the plants, and can see if they are attracted or repelled by certain melodies or frequencies.
One of the samples is typical 'Music for Plants' from what you can find on the internet, supposed to encourage plant growth; the other is a traditional Taiwanese song addressed to plants; the last is by the Pest Modern band Insect, which is more of a punk-rock sound.

Vertimus: a double projection film synchronising the straightening of a poplar tree that has been tilted in the PIAF sphere and the body of a performer, Emilie Pouzet. Posture piecesFacing the film, two vegetated wooden sculptures are an invitation to enter into the skin of a plant. These are "posture sculptures", in which we are invited to recompose our movements in response to external stimuli, just as plants straighten up in the face of different stimuli.

Forêt synclinale: following the same principle of a tree's upright movements as it adapts to a permanent inclination, Forêt synclinale is a ceramic tripod where three conifers grow in a tilted pot.
In geology, a syncline is a fold that is concave upwards. This formation is often created by the collision of two tectonic plates. The trees that grow on these inclined and concave spaces have to adapt to this geographical singularity.
In this piece, a forest on the scale of a bonsai tree grows upright in a slow movement involving gravitropism, phototropism and proprioception.