Living in a changing world - lecture by Aimée Bouchet

From the Yup'ik villages of Alaska to the ice of Antarctica, photojournalist and filmmaker Aimée Bouchet has spent nearly seven years traveling through territories in profound transformation. Through the stories of the people she meets, she poses a dual question: how can we continue to inhabit and love a world that is changing, and how can we tell its story without giving in to shock or naive wonder? A lecture between expedition narratives, environmental upheavals, and the fabric of our imaginations, to explore how storytelling can also nourish our desire to act.

When we talk about climate change and the collapse of biodiversity, we talk about degrees, curves, melting ice, or the disappearance of species. But much less often about what these upheavals transform in our way of inhabiting, loving, and feeling connected to the world.

For nearly seven years, Aimée Bouchet, photojournalist and expedition documentary filmmaker, has been accompanying scientific and human missions from Alaska to Antarctica, through Greenland, the Southern Lands, and the confines of Norway.

In Newtok, Alaska, she meets a Yup'ik community forced to move its village in the face of melting permafrost. In Lofoten, a man spends his nights trying to record the sound of the northern lights. In Scotland, a deaf young woman dreams of feeling the vibrations of whale songs underwater. In Antarctica, scientists dive into the depths to document ecosystems that are still largely unknown and contribute to their protection.

Behind these very different stories emerges the same question: how can we continue to love a world that sometimes seems to escape us?

But telling these stories raises another one: what narratives do we create in the face of environmental upheavals?

Informing and alerting are essential, but are not always enough to set things in motion. Because of the succession of disasters, there is also a risk of fueling helplessness, withdrawal, or cynicism. Conversely, a wonder deprived of knowledge can distract us from reality.

Between the two, can we relate stories capable of looking at the world in all its complexity—its beauty as well as its fragility—and transforming emotion into a desire to act?

Through expedition stories, photographs, and field experiences, "Living in a Changing World" questions both our relationship with the world and the way we choose to tell it. An invitation to give in neither to disenchantment nor to naivety, and to explore what our stories can still nourish in terms of curiosity, attachment, and collective action.

Program:

• 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM: Living in a changing world lecture

• from 7:30 PM: time for discussion

We look forward to seeing you at our engaged third place in Bastille: the makesense space.

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Aimée Bouchet is a photojournalist, author, and expedition documentary filmmaker. For nearly seven years, she has accompanied scientific and human missions from Alaska to Antarctica, passing through Greenland and the French Southern Lands. Through her films, photographs, and narratives, she explores the links we maintain with territories in transformation and the way we tell stories about environmental upheavals, between information, wonder, and engagement.