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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gillian JeinORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Taking the work of beekeeper and artist Olivier Darné as a case study, this article explores ecological art’s role in reimagining urban ‘space’ as urban ‘ground’ within the context of the Grand Paris project. Grand Paris constitutes the mega-scale infrastructural redevelopment of the Île-de-France, which, through public–private partnerships and extensive administrative recentralization, ostensibly aims to better connect intramuros Paris with the petite and grande couronnes. Since its inception, the state-led scheme has brought to the fore traditional ontological and epistemological questions around what ‘the city’ is and whom ‘the city’ is for, now being reframed to chime with our era’s ecological debates around environmental justice, climate change, and biodiversity loss. This article traces two divergent topological imaginaries of the city: government discourses on sustainability in Grand Paris on the one hand; and, on the other, the ongoing agripoetical project, ‘Pollinisation de la Ville’ (2003– ), led by Darné’s transdisciplinary collective the Parti poétique. To frame the significance of this divergence, the article establishes a theoretical dichotomy between ‘hexagonality’ and ‘honeycombing’ drawing state discourses into dialogue with artistic modes for storying human–animal interdependencies in the city in the Anthropocene era.
Author(s): Jein G
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: French Studies
Year: 2024
Volume: 78
Issue: 4
Pages: 623–643
Print publication date: 01/10/2024
Online publication date: 21/08/2024
Acceptance date: 10/04/2024
Date deposited: 03/05/2024
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knae146
DOI: 10.1093/fs/knae146
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