Paris, France — The devastating effects of phosphate extraction on the tiny island of Nauru. The litter from space exploration sprinkled throughout the great Sonoran desert of the American southwest. The rice paddies of Vietnam transplanted to the south of France in the Camargue. These powerful works serve to raise the collective awareness of the effects of climate change and the hand of man on the planet. These are just a few of the themes explored in a collective exhibition/festival being held at the Jeu de Paume museum in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. The museum is currently showing the second edition of its festival dedicated to the evolution of the contemporary image through an exhibition, performances, screenings, evening events, workshops with the artists and a book. The festival entitled Moving Landscapes is being presented until March 23rd featuring intriguing works in myriad mediums ranging from photography to sculpture, paintings and installation works.

The show unfolds as a collective narrative combining representations of natural environments — forests, jungles, deserts among them —and the artistic interpretations of our relationship to our natural world. In the show, the landscape becomes a living and constantly shifting territory, hence the title of the show: Moving Landscapes. Nauru, for example, whose landscape is interpreted in the series entitled Shipwrecked Island, by the French photographer Richard Pak (using real film photography rather than digital), is one of the saddest stories on the planet. Extensive phosphorus deposits, a mineral used in fertilizers, turned the island, a former colony of Germany then administered by Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain after World War I, into a gold mine. Upon independence in 1968 the tiny state became one of the richest in the world until the mineral was exhausted. The island nation, once a treasure island, became one of the poorest nations on Earth by the 1990s and the phosphate mining led to severe environmental degradation now coupled with rising sea levels, coral bleaching and extreme weather events due to climate change.

Meanwhile Andrea Olga Mantovani uses photography to underscore the ravages and transformations of European forests — notably in the Carpathians — in a series of works entitled Roots, produced especially for the festival. In her Journey to Phoenix, Franco-Moroccan artist Laila Hida shows how an Eden of deserts scapes filled with exotic palm trees has been transformed into a product to be consumed. Franco-Swiss artist Julian Charrière exhibits his photographs of palm trees underscoring a world in which the economy takes precedence over ecology. The festival was curated by Jeanne Mercier who conceived the show as an interactive and immersive experience which includes a rich program of concerts, conferences and performances. 1, place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, 75001 Paris, France. Tel: +33 (0) 1 47 03 12 50. https://jeudepaume.org/en/
©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette