earth doesn’t belong to humans
TYPE : archive of in situ installation
MEDIUMS : hand painted textiles, in situ installation
DATE : 2022- ongoing
PLACES : French alps, mountains, the Arctic, at sea in the north ...
SYNOPSIS :
Traditionally, the flag is associated with human’s ownership over lands, the moon and summits. It represents a form of human achievement, an occupation - the flag is conqueror. In my practice, I question human possession of the Earth, the cosmos, territories and all living things; I question the concept of human ownership of nature. We cannot continue to use and dispose, exclusively and absolutely, of the ecosystem of which we are a part. My flags invert this concept of possession by denouncing human domination; my flags do not symbolise achievement, do not show human heroes. They are the opposite of possession. They proclaim : earth doesn't belong to humans
Honoring lands, glaciers, whales, permafrost, walruses, birds, water, wind - and every-bodies in between - says: ‘none of this belongs to humans’. Earth is an ecosystem. Within landscapes, these flags denounce the ecological disaster and become a call to be ecology. The wind becomes co-artist, because with it, the textiles move and the painting becomes alive: the painted bird flies, taking its rightful place in its environment. The images then become traces, imprints of a specific geography, of a singular territory. My flags first flew in the French Alps in 2022, then in the Arctic’s glaciers and sea in 2024. Like the wind, they have no borders.