Paris, France —Global efforts to respond to the environmental problems plaguing the world appear to be breaking down — witness the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification — the UN talks in Saud Arabia to address drought — which failed to reach an agreement, the partial failure of biodiversity talks in Colombia, the failure to reach a UN deal on plastic pollution at the UN Session in South Korea, and a climate finance deal that disappointed developing nations at the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. However, individual grass roots efforts appear to be taking hold. A case in point is COAL — the Coalition for a Cultural Ecology, which mobilizes artists and actors on the cultural scene and raises awareness on environmental issues all the while supporting the emergence of a culture of ecology and biodiversity through its actions, notably the COAL prizes which were awarded in Paris last November 20th and the coalition’s event Sans Réserve (Unreserved) which invites the public to explore the potential of artistic practices to change the way we live on our planet Earth through a one-day exhibition and a series of conferences that was held this year at France’s Museum of Hunting and Nature in the heart of Paris.

This year’s winner was Yan Tomaszewski whose project Sequana explores the possibility of another relationship with the Seine River (Sequana is the goddess of healing and of the Seine River in the Gallo-Roman religion) based on dialogue, empathy, care and the notion of giving and giving back revolving around the thousands of votive offerings to the goddess found in the Seine near its source in Burgundy where the goddess’s main sanctuary was located. The project aims to use sculptures to purify the Seine and to measure the river’s pollutants, to engage in the gesture of votive offerings and neo-pagan rituals all the while co-creating a Guardians of the Seine collective to give the river a legal status, participate in activist movements to fight against a destructive project on the banks of the river, and to engage in scientific collaborations and the production of a film.

Meanwhile the Special Jury Prize went to the C.A.R. (the Cellule d’Action Rituelle – The Ritual Action Cell) for its project, A Cycle which recounts the acts and rituals undertaken to construct a territory and a community by working with the residents of the ZAD Notre-Dame-des-Landes, ZAD meaning Zone to Defend, who successfully worked to defend their region from what they regarded as unnecessary development. The ensemble of the finalists and prize winners use art as a medium to benefit ecology and the environment leading to a more sustainable world and land management, essential to our survival. As the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres recently put it on the website of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, « We depend on land for our survival. Yet, we treat it like dirt. » ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette
https://projetcoal.org/en/