As part of the 4th season of the "Creators facing Climate Emergency" series hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, the Fondation Thalie invites visual artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané to discuss with art historian Teresa Castro.

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané's recent work focuses on the notion of "feral thinking" proposed by Juliana Fausto — ferality being, in the Brazilian writer’s own words "a transformation of what was once tamed into something that is no longer so, suggesting that maybe survival in the Anthropocene has something to do with becoming feral." The artist meets Teresa Castro, a lecturer at Paris 3, who's worked on the relationship between weeds and cinema, animism, as well as notions of nature and queer botany.

Created in 2020 by the Fondation Thalie, this series of conversations between artists, designers and scientists committed to a post-carbon society aims to pass on new thinking and knowledge to inspire a whole new generation of creators, to invent imaginaries of transition, and to design and implement new ways of producing in the light of depleting natural resources. The great ecological challenge of our time.

Guests: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, visual artist, and Teresa Castro, art historian, Lecturer in film and audiovisual studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Co-moderated by Chiara Vecchiarelli, curator of the program and Myriam Lefkowitz, artist choreographer.

Born and trained in Barcelona, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Both in his sculptures and installations, which are extremely fragile and incorporate altered organic materials, and in his film work, the artist experiments with the correspondences between organic and geometric forms, as well as the complex web of dependencies between the natural order and the order created by human beings. He is about to open in Paris "La pensée férale", a two-part solo exhibition at Esther-Schipper and Mendes Wood (2/04 - 26/05/2024) and has exhibited as part of various solo exhibitions, among at MACBA, Barcelona (2023-2024); Kiasma, Helsinki (2023) ; Institut d'Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (2022) ; Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2019); Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona (2018); Museo Serralves, Porto (2017); MAMM, Medellín (2016). His work has been included in group exhibitions including, MoMA, New York (2023); Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2023); Gare de Hambourg, Berlin (2022); Liverpool Biennale (2021); Taipei Biennale (2020); Centre Pompidou, Metz (2017);14th Lyon Biennale (2017); Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2016); New Museum Triennial, New York (2015); Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid (2014).

Teresa Castro is a lecturer in film studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. A significant part of her recent research focuses on the links between cinema and animism, plant life forms in visual culture and environmental histories of photography and cinema. In this context, she has published 'The Mediated Plant' (E-flux, 2019) and co-edited with Perig Pitrou and Marie Rebecchi the collective work Puissance du végétal et cinéma animiste. La vitalité révélée par la technique (Presses du réel, 2020). With Brenda Edgar and Estelle Sohier, she co-ordinated the "Histoires écologiques de la photographie" dossier in the journal Transbordeur (2024).

Based on a curatorial proposal by the Fondation Thalie, this fourth season hosted at the École des Arts Décoratifs is organised by Chiara Vecchiarelli, coordinator of the programme Creators facing Climate Emergency, in co-construction with Patrick Laffont-DeLojo, teacher in stage design at the École des Arts Décoratifs.

In partnership with the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris

Invited to take part in the 12th edition of the Salon Art Genève 2024 to present its art collection, Fondation Thalie organized an off-site "Créateurs Urgence Climat" event as part of the ArtTalks conference program of the fair.

Linking art, science and ecology, this conversation between the artist Claudia Comte, a major figure on the Swiss and international scene based in the Basel region, and the Spanish curator Mónica Bello, Head of the Arts at CERN programme – the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva – is an invitation to explore biomorphic universes and symbiotic forms, techno-scientific knowledge and cosmic phenomena.

Claudia Comte (b. 1983, Grancy) is a Swiss artist based in Basel, Switzerland. Her practice is guided by a longstanding interest in teasing out the history and memory of biomorphic forms through traditional hand processes, industrial and machine technologies. Comte’s site-specific installations bring together monumental wall paintings and sculptures playfully inspired by organic patterns and morphology, paying testament to the intelligence and transformative capacities of the ecological world. Her work has been widely presented, including Solo Houses, Matarranña (2023), Globus Public Art Project in collaboration with Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2023), Casa Wabi, Mexico 2023, König Galerie im KHK Wien (2022), Belgrade Biennale (2021), Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid (2021), Castello di Rivoli, Rome (2019), among others.

Mónica Bello is art Historian and Curator. Since 2015, she is Head of Arts at CERN at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, where she leads and supervises the laboratory’s art strategy and the artistic programs (residencies, art commissions, exhibitions). Curator of Exploring the Unknown, the inaugural art exhibition for the CERN Science Gateway, the new visitor centre of the Laboratory designed by Renzo Piano, her most recent curated exhibition is Dark Matters for the Science Gallery Melbourne, and the Icelandic Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale with the artist Sigurður Guðjónsson. Bello works internationally participating in selection committees, advisory boards, and mentorship programs. She is a regular speaker at conferences and active in several programmes in Europe and globally, where art and cultural innovation are the focus.

This conversation has been organized in partnership with Art Genève.

Created in 2020 by Fondation Thalie, the "Créateurs Urgence Climat" programme of conversations invites artists, designers, thinkers and scientists to the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris each month to share new knowledge in the light of the climate transition and to think about reasoned artistic production in the era of a post-carbon society. Further info online.