Farmer Designers, an Art of Living
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Farmer designers, an art of living 14 July 2021 – 17 January 2022 Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design #paysansdesigners #madd_bordeaux madd-bordeaux.fr Farmer designers, an art of living 14 July 2021 – 17 January 2022 One of the main roles of design today is to invent new reciprocities. While modernity has forged the idea that humans could control their environment and make nature their own, we now know that this is simply not the case. The current crises are our confirmation that it is time to change paradigm. 20th-century industrialization has profoundly transformed our soils in order to feed more people, more effectively: two concepts that are nowadays being called into question on all sides. Food has become an incredibly complex arena; from farm to fork, many different processes come into play. In English, the word ‘design’ is used with precision: fashion design, interior design, sport design. This exhibition is devoted to farming design. A renewed agriculture committed to dealing with the upheavals in biodiversity and climate. The exhibition makes soil our central focus, revealing new knowledge about its role, how it functions and the ecosystem that it harbors. It demonstrates the scales of crops and production, offers insights into new farming practices and reexamines the dimension of time. Here in France as well as on other continents, it explores the origins of a new culture that places people at the heart of unprecedented ties with nature and repositions them on an equal footing, as one of the links in the chain of life alongside living beings, plants and animals. A fresh perspective on the world to which we belong. Curator of the exhibition Constance Rubini Assisted by Étienne Tornier Scenography of the exhibition in the museum and offsite François Bauchet Jean-Baptiste Fastrez Assisted by Bérengère Bussioz The scientific committee Lighting François Bauchet Serge Damon Gilles Boeuf Saskia Caracciolo Illustrations Marc Dufumier Atelier CTJM Dominique Marchais Félix Noblia Graphic design Madina Querre Clément Le Tulle-Neyret Émilie Rousselou 3 Plan of the exhibition A A renewed agriculture B The farmer’s tools Tools for an agroecological transition C Real Facts 10 4 5 6 7 8 1 Draw the landscape 2 When the farmer takes over 3 Regenerate the soils, 3 design for a fertile land 4 Water, a virtuous cycle B 5 The genius of plants 6 A day in real time with Félix Noblia 7 Seeds, a lively heritage 8 Leaven, the unsuspected A 12 matrix of bread 2 10 Three portraits of young farmers 12 Standardization of the living, what is the limit? 1 C At the hôtel de Lalande Misterien Barbara Schroeder At the hôtel de Lalande 4 5 Pioneers corridor 1 Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964) 4 Victor Papanek (1923-1998) 14 13 After the resounding success of The Sea around us, the American Austro-American designer, teacher and activist, The environmental impacts of design are at the 15 12 biologist embarked in an investigation denouncing the disastrous he conceives design along with a political heart of his preoccupations, leading him to lay effects of the use of pesticides and other chemical products, scope and associate the designer job with the foundations of eco-design (or social design). 16 11 recycled from war industry. In 1962, the publication of the the notion of social, ethical and moral Silent Spring triggered a war with agro-industrial lobbies who responsibility. 17 10 discredited her scientific status. She died from cancer in 1964. The use of DDT was finally forbidden in 1972 by the US National 18 9 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 5 Walter James, Lord Northbourne (1896-1982) 19 8 “For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from Walter James is an atypical figure in the He coins the concept of organic farming, 20 7 their conception until death”. (Silent Spring, 1962) English agricultural landscape. Influenced described in his book, Look to the Land (1940), by Rudolf Steiner, he meets in Switzerland in which he asserts the logical link between 21 6 Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, the main figure of biodynamic human beings and every living beings and where agriculture, and invites him over, in his farm in he describes the farm as an organism, as a 22 5 2 Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) Kent, to give his first lecture in Great Britain. living whole, that detains a balanced organic life. 23 4 American architect, engineer and designer, faced with the great challenges humanity had to deal with, he advocated a design 24 3 revolution in innovation by adopting the dual perspective of global 6 Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) vision and local action. 25 2 In his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), Buckminster A pioneer in research on electromagnetic of plants to various stimuli and to Fuller introduced a concept that made him famous: we share a waves, semiconductors and radio waves, the electromagnetic waves. 26 1 common vessel that we must preserve. Indian researcher dedicated himself after 1900 to plant electrophysiology and produced In 1926, he is invited to give a conference at “We all live on a single island surrounded by a large ocean. It is landmark works on plant growth, the reaction the Sorbonne on “The nervous system of plants”. our only vessel to navigate through space: our spaceship Earth! It contains enough resources to take 100% care of humanity, but it needs to be flown with care!” 7 Chico Mendes (1944-1988) Brazilian syndicalist leader, known for his fight off credit for grazing in the Amazon and to 3 Akira Miyawaki (1928-) for seringueiros’ rights (workers who collect create a nature reserve of nearly one million latex in rubber tree plantations in Amazonia), hectares bearing his name. Japanese botanist, a pioneer in applied ecology for forest Chico Mendes encouraged the creation of restoration, he progressively composed a major bank with more forest reserves managed by traditional “At first, I thought I was fighting to save rubber than ten million seeds. Based on his researches, he developed communities. His murder in 1988, at the behest trees; then I thought I was fighting for saving a method known as “Miyawaki’s method” which allows the of a landowner, prompted the Brazilian the Amazon rainforest. But now, restauration of indigenous forests from native trees on poor government to cut I know I am fighting for humanity.” soils, degraded or deforested. Doing so, he contributed to refurbish more than 1300 sites in Japan. 6 7 Pioneers corridor 8 Henri Mendras (1927-2003) 11 Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) 14 13 French sociologist, Henri Mendras specializes in the study of Austrian philosopher and educator, Rudolf He theorizes anthroposophy, a doctrine 15 12 peasantry and French campaigns. In his acclaimed book, Steiner is a forerunner of biodynamics, which convinced that there’s a spiritual world in which La fin des paysans [The End of Peasants] (1967), he analyzes the he presents in a series of conferences in 1924 to men once took part thoroughly by a form of 16 11 disappearance of the peasant production mode, replaced by assist farmers and scientists in finding again a dream consciousness, which has been reduced professionals of the agriculture already ordained according to a profitable link with nature. because of its attachment to material things. 17 10 capitalist and productive mode. 18 9 “Today, the second agricultural revolution disrupts the structures and the quiet balance is broken. It is the agriculture 12 Bhaskhar Hiraji Save (1922-2015) 19 8 turn to ‘industrialize’ and French peasantry is killed, with more than 150 years late, by the civilization we name industrial.” Indian farmer and activist, he developed a towards the over-indebtedness of the 20 7 system of organic cultivation in a rice field and farmers and the increase in suicide rates managed to stop using chemical fertilizers amongst them. 21 6 in 1960 by setting up an innovative system of 9 Allan Savory (1935-) platforms and trenches for the irrigation of He opposes the Green Revolution which 22 5 fruit tree crops. favored imports and massively introduced Zimbabwean biologist and ecologist, Allan Savory discovers, chemicals in India. 23 4 against the tide, that grazing can limit desertification. Engaged, he publishes in 2006 an open letter By compacting the soil, animals help to retain water in the soil to the government to draw its attention “To defy nature is suicidal.” 24 3 and allow vegetation to take root. Influenced by André Voisin’s work, he develops a holistic pasture management method that 25 2 allows for better carbon sequestration in the soil. Along with his wife, Jody Butterfield, they create the Africa Center for Holistic 13 Jean Dorst (1924-2001) 26 1 Management in Zimbabwe and establish the Savory Institute in Colorado with the goal of promoting large-scale soil restoration. French biologist and ornithologist, committed worldwide reputation with the publication director of the National natural history of his book Avant que la nature meure (1965), museum from 1975 to 1985, activist against in which he establishes the scientific the harmful effects of the “Glorious Thirties” foundations for what we will later call, 10 Arne Næss (1912-2009) industrialization, Jean Dorst acquired a biodiversity. Considered as the most important Norwegian philosopher of the 20th century, great alpinist, resistant during World War II, Naess is an engaged ecologist. Influenced by Rachel Carson’s 14 Joël Sternheimer (1943-) Silent Spring, he theorizes a new vision of the world (“Deep Ecology”), to oppose a form of ecology, called superficial, which Mathematician and physician, also known the existence of wave mechanics phenomenon focuses only on the reduction of pollution and the safeguarding under his singer name, Evariste, Joël Sternheimer through amino acids.