April 8 to 13, 2019
Every year, the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris holds a week long theme-based event around a reflection on the most important challenges towards peace in the world. The 2019 edition was devised on the subject of natural resources and sustainable development. I argued that “from the hedgehog to the bat we know little about animal’s lives, their environment and the key roles they play in ecosystems… If we want to talk about peace, we should also include the animals of the world whose survival is seriously compromised by our ways of life”. Because Un vélo autour de la Cité was about inter-human relations, wild life illustrations acted as a pretext to exchange with the public. Indeed, between the onlookers, my colleague and myself, many comical and serious discussions arose.
I consider art as a force of Nature, an essential energy within each of us that nevertheless can only be revealed through appearances. At the very heart of existence, the human being remains as much a mystery as a source of wonder while animals appear to us in all their dazzling and inexhaustible beauty. We must protect all living entities without discrimination since animal, vegetal and human lives are inseparable.
Special thanks to: Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, Maison des étudiants canadiens (MEC) and Collège d’Espagne.
photo credit: Ede Halaszy.