According to Theodor W. Adorno, from the domination of nature flow all the other dominations that fragment our societies. In his essay “Theodor W. Adorno, the domination of nature”, published by Amsterdam in 2021, Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod details the paradox of this undertaking, which raises the question of the domination of nature at a time before the ecological peril that threatens us today.

It is therefore the motives linked to the seizure of power over nature - the abolition of magic and poetry, the restriction of emotions - that enable us to think in a common framework about administrative exploitation, patriarchy, racism, speciesism and the various forms of environmental destruction.

cneai = initiates a three-year cycle of research and experimentation on protean dominations. The prism of social metabolism enables us to consider dominations in their manifestations and flows between different beings: within the same society, and between human and non-human societies. Each year, cneai = invites one or more artists to take over new art spaces, as well as the Parc de la Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, as living laboratories, fields of investigation, creation, inspiration and exhibition spaces.

This first exhibition presents new creations by Thierry Boutonnier, Jean-Charles Bureau, Julia Gault, Sonia Saroya and Édouard Sufrin, as well as updates of works and protocols by Florence Doléac, Julien Prévieux, Virginie Yassef and Lois Weinberger. In a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces, material works coexist with participatory and performative artistic gestures, and with documentary installations that provide food for thought.

The exhibition takes its title from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel “The Name of the World is Forest”, a fictional account of the colonization by noisy invaders of a planet where silent inhabitants lived in harmony under the protection of a forest. The enslavement and destruction at work at the heart of the story offer a particular resonance to the system of dominations and their mechanisms that cneai = probes in this cycle.

Visitors are invited to experience the exhibition for themselves: snooze in Florence Doléac’s Maxidreams dream bed and join the worldwide community of dreamers via a QR code; watch an ivy grow in Lois Weinberger’s newspaper garden; push back the mental limits of gravity by contemplating Julia Gault’s earth columns, which rise vertically from the ground. Get lost in Thierry Boutonnier’s spider’s web of archival images in the lobby of the Maison Internationale, or hope to catch a glimpse of squash plants protruding from sixteen food cartons filled with organic residues laid out in a grid pattern in the park; smile at Julien Prévieux and Virginie Yassef, who gnaw a tree down the center until it splits in two in a Super 8 film; let yourself be surprised by the voices of philosophers, scientists, anthropologists, astrophysicists, sociologists, historians and ethnomusicologists, diffused through invisible sound boxes by Sonia Saroya and Édouard Sufrin; feel the fragility of Jean-Charles Bureau’s works, eight paintings-sculptures on wood, vulnerable, exposed to natural deterioration but also human, threatened like natural species subjected to human pressures.

” LIVING IN THE EXHIBITION “
A program of multi-disciplinary performances and actions allows visitors to “inhabit” the exhibition, with visual, sound, literary and scientific artistic experiences, featuring works by Théodora Barat, Simon Boudvin, Valérie Crenleux, Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin, Martin Desinde and Louise Chennevière.

19 May: Performance by Post Industrial Animism and sound walks by Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin

28 May: Performance reading by Simon Boudvin on his publication Ailanthus Altissima, Une monographie située de l’ailante.

25 June: Screening of the film OFF POWER by Théodora Barat, lecture and participatory workshop by Valérie Crenleux

10 July: Readings and editions of literary posters by Louise Chennevière and Martin Desinde. Les deux auteur.es font répondre poésie et idéologie dans des récits d’expériences personnelles, qui interrogent les rapports de pouvoir et de domination au sein des relations amoureuses, sociales et politiques.
Discussion entre Cristina Parapar et Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod à propos de la domination de la nature chez Theodor W. Adorno.

The cneai = is associating this exhibition and the programme with the 5th edition of “Jardins du monde en mouvement” organised by the Cité internationale Heritage Centre with the sponsorship support of the Caisse des dépôts.

These two exhibitions invite the public to experience the Cité internationale park in a different way, in a more attentive relationship with the environment, an awakening to the animal and plant species that live in this unique biodiversity park, living side by side with the 6800 international residents. La Cité internationale et le cneai = offrent aux visiteurs une déambulation poétique et artistique de jardin en jardin, d’arbre en arbre, une évasion sensible au cœur de l’été parisien.

The cneai’s exhibition “Le nom du monde est forêt” (The name of the world is forest), in its relationship with living organisms and ecosystems, can also be put in dialogue with the exhibition at Bétonsalon - Centre d’art et de recherche - Soupe Primordiale, a solo exhibition by Tiphaine Calmettes, on view from 20 May to 23 July.

PRACTICAL INFO
{Horaires d’ouverture du cneai =
Lundi - Samedi : 10h – 17h
Horaires d’ouverture du Parc de la Cité Universitaire :
Tous les jours : 7h – 22h30
Visites guidées sur réservation tous les mercredis après-midi :
mediation-exposition@cneai.com
Contact presse : communication@cneai.com
Contact EAC, visites groupes, scolaires : public@cneai.com
Plus d’information sur le programme complet d’exposition et du cycle Habiter l’exposition : programmes@cneai.com }

PARTNERS
{Ministère de la Culture} {DRAC Ile-de-France} {Région Ile-de-France} {Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris} {Centre Wallonie Bruxelles} {Galerie salle principale}

DOCUMENTS TO DOWNLOAD
{JOURNAL DE L'EXPOSITION}