L’Écologie des relations - La Forêt amante de la mer

Through an unprecedented dialogue between works by Japanese artists from different generations, “The Ecology of Relationships – The Forest in Love with the Sea” makes tangible the emotional, ecological and memorial ties that connect us to the environments in which we live. Taking as its starting point the triple disaster of March 11 that struck northeastern Japan in 2011 — an event with multiple intimate, social and environmental consequences, the exhibition presents works created in the so-called “post-Fukushima” years alongside practices shaped by Japan’s history and rapid modernization in the 1970s. Through this juxtaposition, presented in a scenography that echoes the architecture of Kengo Kuma’s FRAC, the exhibition shows how the events of March 11 and the works that emerged from them convey something of the works created in Japan during the second half of the 20th century. Confronting ecosystems that are constantly being made and unmade, the artists presented in this exhibition share a commitment to creating adventurous works, as dense with collaborations as with conflicts, and to facing the importance of the relationships that connect us both to the living world and to one another. In other words, these are artists who have chosen — as emphasized by the exhibition’s subtitle, “The Forest in Love with the Sea,” borrowed from Shigeatsu Hatakeyama’s ecological fable — a particular ecology of relationships. A cultural program will accompany the exhibition “The Ecology of Relationships – The Forest in Love with the Sea” at Frac Sud. The Society of Suitors of the Oyster Forest. A musical project conceived by Yama Yuki & Gregory Taniguchi-Ambos in dialogue with the exhibition.