Lectures, discussions between artists and researchers, artistic performances and screenings
THURSDAY 12 MARCH 2026 | 10.00 am – 6.30 pm
By promoting a transdisciplinary approach, the circulation of ideas and the intersection of artistic and theoretical approaches, this study day aims to reflect on the construction of narratives and to broaden our understanding of climate issues.
Whilst fiction is often associated with the imagination, as opposed to reality, the term ‘fiction’ will be used here primarily in the sense of a ‘hypothesis’ or ‘model’ that facilitates reflection. Within the framework of this seminar, ‘climate fictions’ will be considered not so much as stories disconnected from reality but, on the contrary, as stories that reconnect us with it. Through the way they engage our emotions, fictions open up new ways of paying attention. As thought experiments, they can enable us to grasp reality from other viewpoints or through different lenses, to conceive critical imaginaries, or even to develop alternative narratives. As Donna Haraway reminds us in *Living with Trouble*, the stories we tell matter, and the ‘times of emergency’ we are going through require us to invent new ones[1].
This seminar therefore aims to establish dialogues – or rather, correspondences – in the sense, as Tim Ingold[2] suggests, of thoughts that resonate with one another and take shape together – between artists and researchers (philosophers, historians, anthropologists, scientists) to bring forth fictions that serve as starting points for collective reflection and avenues for action. How are artists, and indeed cultural institutions, attempting to respond to the climate emergency? How can works be produced and disseminated today, within an Anthropocene context? The climate and meteorological phenomena, as symptoms of ecological breakdown, will serve as the starting point for these exchanges, which, like any dialogue, will tend to offer divergent paths and points of departure.
[1] Haraway, Donna, *Living with Disruption*, trans. Vivien García, Vaulx-en-Velin, Éditions des mondes à faire, 2020, p. 72.
[2] See Tim Ingold, *Correspondences: Accompanying the Living*, trans. Sylvain Griot, Arles, Actes Sud, 2024.
Venue
: Renoir Cinema, Le Fresnoy – National Studio for Contemporary Arts, Tourcoing
Booking required; free until 5.00 pm, with a charge for the screening
9.30 am – 10.00 am: Welcome coffee
10.00 am – 10.10 am
Introduction by Pascale Pronnier (Head of Artistic Programming, Le Fresnoy – National Studio) and Géraldine Sfez (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Lille, member of the CEAC – Centre d’Étude des Arts contemporains)
10.10 am – 10.20 am
Audio piece — Olivier Remaud (philosopher and director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
10.20 am – 11.00 am
Lecture — Olivier Remaud | Turbulence, resilience and extinction: life put to the test
11.00 am – 11.45 am
Discussion — Hicham Berrada (artist) / Riccardo Venturi (historian and contemporary art critic)
11.45 am – 12.30 pm
Discussion with the three speakers from this morning’s session
2.00 pm – 2.45 pm
Talk — Anne Bertrand (historian and art critic for Art Press and Traffic) and Ludovic Hadjeras (artist)
2.45 pm – 3.15 pm
Lecture — Alejandro León-Cannock (exhibition curator, lecturer, researcher and visual artist, recipient of the Institute of Photography’s 2025 Fellowship) | The Subtlest of Extractions: What the Landscape Does to the World
3.15 pm – 4.00 pm
Discussion — Teresa Castro (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle University) and Hideyuki Ishibashi (artist) | The living materials of photo-cinematography
4.00 pm – 4.45 pm
Discussion with the five afternoon speakers and closing remarks
5.00 pm – 6.30 pm (standard cinema prices)
Screening of the film Planètes by Momoko Seto, 2025, 1 hour 16 minutes (national release on 11 March 2026)
Closing film of the 64th Cannes Critics’ Week 2025
Winner of the Paul Grimault Prize at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2025
Hicham Berrada, an artist born in Casablanca in 1986, lives and works in Roubaix. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. His work has been exhibited at venues including the Louvre-Lens, the Centre Pompidou, the Arab World Institute and the Palais de Tokyo, MoMA PS1 in New York, the Yokohama Triennale and the Hayward Gallery in London. Hicham Berrada was a visiting artist-in-residence at Le Fresnoy for the 2024–2025 season. In his videos, installations and performances, he strives to create new worlds by harnessing the laws of the one we know. These laws – whether mathematical, biological or chemical – are orchestrated to generate landscapes that lie halfway between the familiar and the strange. He therefore defines his approach as that of a ‘director of energies’, who selects and arranges parameters: manipulating the temperature, brightness or viscosity of a medium so that, within a defined framework, something occurs. What is presented is therefore always a collaboration between human intervention and physical, chemical and biological phenomena.
Teresa Castro is a senior lecturer in film studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University. Her recent research focuses on feminist approaches to documentary film, the environmental histories of photography and cinema, and plant life forms in visual culture. In this context, she has notably published The Mediated Plant (E flux, 2019) and co-edited, with Perig Pitrou and Marie Rebecchi, the collective work Puissance du végétal et cinéma animiste. La vitalité révélée par la technique (Dijon, Presses du réel, 2020). She is also involved in programme curation and writing.
Ludovic Hadjeras is a visual artist whose work explores, amongst other things, quasi-identity issues relating to the relationships between humans and non-humans. At the heart of his practice lies a particular focus on the spaces occupied by other animals, seeking contact and, at times, collaboration. Living and working across several countries, his travels and the encounters that arise from them are reflected in his practice through installations, sculptures, videos and written works.
Hideyuki Ishibashi was born in Kobe, Japan, in 1986. He obtained a BFA from the Faculty of Photography at Nihon University College of Art in Tokyo in 2009, and from Le Fresnoy – National Studio for Contemporary Arts (Chantal Akerman cohort) in 2018. His work, which is primarily expressed through photography, has been shown at international events such as the Unseen Photo Festival and Breda Photo, as well as in solo and group exhibitions in Japan, South Korea, England, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Ishibashi held his first exhibition in France in 2013, where he was nominated for the Voies Off prize in Arles. In 2014, he received the SFR Young Talents award for the exhibition ‘Micro-Macro’ in Lille, and went on to win the Meijburg Art Commission prize in Amsterdam in 2018. He has been invited to several artist residencies: the Cité des arts (Paris) and La Capsule (Le Bourget) in 2019, the Chartres Agricultural College in 2020 and Le Fresnoy for the Campus Jean Arnault project in collaboration with LVMH/EDHEC, and the French Institute in Japan for Nuit Blanche Kyoto in 2021. His first artist’s book, *Présage*, was published by IMA Photobooks in 2015, and his second book, *Other Voices*, was published by (M)éditions in France in 2019. His artworks are represented by Galerie IMA (Shinagawa), IBASHO (Antwerp) and Bigaignon (Paris).
Alejandro Léon-Cannock, originally from Peru, is an exhibition curator, lecturer, researcher and visual artist living and working in Arles. He develops a practice situated at the intersection of artistic creation, arts research and curation, exploring the power of images as events of thought in the contemporary context. He holds a PhD in artistic research from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie (Arles and Aix-Marseille University), a Master’s degree in contemporary Latin American photography and a Master’s degree in philosophy, specialising in contemporary French philosophy. In 2024, he curated the Peruvian Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. In 2025, he was awarded the Research and Creation Grant from the Institute for Photography in Lille. He is a senior lecturer in Fine Arts (CNU Section 18) and currently teaches as a Temporary Teaching and Research Assistant (ATER) at the University of Aix-Marseille.
Olivier Remaud is a philosopher and Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. The recipient of several national and international awards, he has published numerous works, including Solitude volontaire (2017) with Albin Michel, as well as Penser comme un iceberg (2020, Babel poche 2023), Quand les montagnes dansent. Récits de la Terre intime (2023, Babel poche, 2026) and Nocturne amphibien. Un conte écologique (2026), published by Actes Sud. In his work, he explores the relationships between humans and non-humans and advocates the importance of storytelling in (re)orienting our behaviour towards living beings.
Riccardo Venturi is a senior lecturer in Art Theory and History at the School of Arts, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. He was a Fellow in Art History and Theory at the Académie de France – Villa Medici, Rome (2018–2019) and at the National Institute of Art History (INHA) in Paris (2012–2016). Having devoted a trilogy of books on pictorial abstraction – focusing on Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt and Francesco Lo Savio – he is now exploring the intersections between the visual arts and environmental humanities.
This study day is organised by Le Fresnoy – Studio national for Contemporary Arts and the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Arts (CEAC) at the University of Lille, in collaboration with FORESEE and the Institute for Photography, and with the support of the Institut français in Paris and the Lille European Metropolis (MEL)
Le Fresnoy Productions / Price
The 19th StudioCollector Prize, established by Isabelle and Jean-Conrad Lemaître and presented on Saturday 29 November 2025 by collectors Iordanis Kerenidis and Piergiorgio Pepe, has been awarded to Kieu-Anh Nguyen Phuong for her film FALLEN NOON.
Young audiences
A programme designed for families, featuring guided tours of the ‘Panorama 27’ exhibition and film screenings, offering opportunities to share poetic and artistic moments.
Event / Partnership
Monday 8 December 2025, 7.00 pm –9.00 pm
For this seventh event, CHANEL and the Jeu de Paume welcome Claire Denis. Daniel Duque, a student at Le Fresnoy – Studio National for Contemporary Arts, a partner institution for this event, will be in conversation with Claire Denis.
