The jardin du Lautaret an artist residency from June 4 to 10, 2016, at the Col du Lautaret.
A scientific hub forUniversité Grenoble Alpes the CNRS, integrated into national and international research networks focusing on the alpine environment, The jardin du Lautaret Hautes-Alpes, 2,100 meters) is hosting several artist residencies on the theme of botanical drawing from June 4 to 10.
This garden is one of the last university botanical gardens and boasts internationally recognized expertise. Its collections include nearly 2,000 plant species from the Alps and most of the world's mountains. They are the ideal medium for illustrating the biodiversity and fragility of high-altitude environments in the face of global change. The quality of the collections is attested by the Conservatoires des Collections Végétales Spécialisées (CCVS), Jardin remarquable (DREAL PACA) and Jardins Botaniques de France et des pays francophones (JBF) labels.
The aim of the residency is to produce a sensitive artistic collection, through a variety of perspectives, on this famous century-old garden in its magnificent setting. A writer, a painter, and a photographer will be immersed in the heart of the Lautaret garden, where they will share the daily lives of scientists and gardeners. They are invited to exchange their perspectives and express their feelings.
The results of this collective work will be published in Cahiers illustrés du Lautaret, a publication edited since 2010 by The jardin du Lautaret, with the support of the Briançonnais Community of Municipalities.
The participants
Rick Bass, author
American writer and environmentalist, born on March 7, 1958, in Fort Worth, Texas.
The son of a Texas geologist, Rick Bass earned a bachelor's degree in geology from Utah State University in 1979. From 1979 to 1987, he worked as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi: it was there, during his lunch breaks, that this admirer of Jim Harrison wrote his first short stories.
However, Rick Bass longed for more isolation so he could devote himself to writing. So in 1987, he and his wife moved to the Yaak Valley in the far northwest corner of Montana, near Troy. There, he worked to protect his adopted region, particularly against roads and logging. Rick Bass was one of the founders of the Yaak Valley Forest Council. He was also a member of several environmental organizations such as Round River Conservation Studies, the Sierra Club, and the Montana Wilderness Association.
Whether through short stories, novels, or essays, Rick Bass always writes about environmental issues and the gradual disappearance of wilderness. The author of more than twenty books, he has received numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award.
Yves Berger, painter
Born in 1976 in Haute-Savoie, Yves Berger lives and works in the hamlet where he grew up. A graduate of the Geneva School of Fine Arts, he received the Stravinsky Prize for painting in 2001.
He has exhibited at the CRP Nord Pas-de-Calais in Douchy-les-Mines, the Maison Folie de Wazemmes in Lille, and in several galleries in Switzerland, Germany, and Ireland. Some of his drawings and texts have appeared in the journals Critical Quarterly and Art on Paper (New York), Brick (Toronto), Conjonctures (Montreal), Revue d'études palestiniennes (Paris), and Janus (Brussels).
He has also published two collections of poems, Destinez-moi la Palestine (Dar al-feel Publications, Jerusalem, 2008) and Mes deux béquilles (Éditions Art & Fiction, Lausanne, 2009), and co-edited with John Berger the collective work Le blaireau et le roi (Éditions Héros-Limite, Geneva, 2010).
Daniel Michiels, photographer
Daniel Michiels was born in Brussels in 1952. At the age of twenty-six, he left the city to settle in the Belgian Ardennes (Berismenil), in the hills above La Roche-en-Ardenne, a region that has become the almost exclusive subject of his photographic work.
There, he photographs and "trains" his bees. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and New York. He received the 1st Prize from the Jules and Marie Destrée Foundation (theme of rural housing) as well as the RTBF Prize.
He was commissioned by the Archives of Wallonia to produce a publication on farmers and has published several books of photographs.
Discovery and science
