An eponymous exhibition will be held at the Chapelle du Méjan from July 4 to September 25 on the occasion of the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles 2022.
In southern Chile, the forest catalyzes several struggles for life. In the beginning, that of the Mapuche indigenous peoples for the preservation of their territorial and cultural sovereignty in the face of Spanish imperialism, now perpetuated by the expansion of the agroforestry industry. When intensive agroforestry depletes the soil and erodes the biodiversity of primary forests, it erases in the same gesture the ancestral practices that they shelter: herbalism, traditional medicines and spiritualities intimately linked to the plants of these ancient environments.
In this book, three photographic investigations recount, with one voice, the offensive of extractivist economic models and the struggle of the Lafkenche, a people of Mapuche culture. From the meeting with the Lafkenche is born a series of vibrant portraits where healers, shamans, rappers and evangelists bear witness to the resistance and solidarity that animates their community. Ritual Unusual diverts the methods of ethnographic photography to allow the forces in struggle on the Lafkenche lands to express themselves, in all their asymmetry.
Through these multiple entry points, this exploration of the South Chilean forest reaffirms the urgency of adopting a historicized, transversal and embodied reading of biodiversity.
Ritual Inhabitual (RI), multidisciplinary artistic collective founded by Tito González García and Florencia Grisanti.
Adriana Paredes Pinda, Mapuche-Huilliche poetess.
Flora Pennec, ethnobotanist associated with the CNRS and the Musée de l’Homme.
Jacob Rekedal, PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of California.
Marien González Hidalgo, graduate in environmental sciences from the Autónoma University of Madrid.
Vincent Debaene, academician and doctor of the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
Book directed by Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, artist and independent curator, doctor in practice and theory of photography from the ENSP of Arles.
This book contributes to the promotion of Art faber and was produced with the support of the Lab. Arts & Entreprises of EDMP / University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas and the Collectif de l’Art faber.
For more information: www.artfaber.org
EXHIBITION CURATOR: SERGIO VALENZUELA ESCOBEDO.
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF RICARDO BAEZ, GRAPHIC DESIGNER, SERGE BAHUCHET, PROFESSOR OF ETHNOBIOLOGY, AND FLORA PENNEC, ETHNOBOTANIST.
PUBLICATION: FORÊTS GÉOMÉTRIQUES. LUTTES EN TERRITOIRE MAPUCHE, ACTES SUD, 2022.
www.actes-sud.fr
WITH SUPPORT FROM THE MINISTRY OF CULTURES, ARTS AND HERITAGE OF CHILE AND THE DIRAC-DIVISION FOR CULTURES, ARTS, HERITAGE AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY OF THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF CHILE.
CHAPELLE SAINT-MARTIN DU MÉJAN
4 JULY – 25 SEPTEMBER 2022
10.00 AM – 07.30 PM
https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/1074/ritual-inhabitual
