Tree structures Conference 🌲 Writings on The Living

Here is the report on our first event organised in our new offices in Lyon. For this meeting, Graphéine chose to host Klervi Blanchard (former graphic designer at Graphéine), Marion Afriat, Angélique Boucé (documentary filmmakers) and Gilles Rabiot (artist) to present their work, each of which strives to reveal the beauty of the (extra)ordinary and questions our relationship with “the living”.

Writings of the living

To introduce this meeting, Emmanuelle Valli, semiologist, consultant and teacher, prepared a presentation addressing the major issues related to the theme of writing about the living, whether graphic, visual, scripted or narrative, in the Anthropocene era. Here is a transcript of her presentation.

NB: You can also find a written transcript of her presentation on her website.

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Drawing the living

Gilles Rabiot is an artist who trained at the École Boulle in Paris. He is exhibiting his work at this event. Trees are somewhat of a theme in his life: in his family life, because his father and grandfather before him were cabinetmakers. They also represent his professional life, as he chose to follow in their footsteps and devote himself to designing and manufacturing contemporary furniture. And they represent his life as an artist, to which he has devoted more time since retiring, drawing trees in minute detail. In other words, he has spent his life with trees: when he was creating wooden furniture, it was dead trees that enabled him to earn a living, which is why today, in gratitude, he pays tribute to them by immortalising living trees.

Discover his work on Flickr.

Des hêtres à la cime

In the documentary “Des (h)êtres à la cime” (From beech trees to treetops – “beech trees”/”hêtres” playing on the word “êtres” which means “beings” in french), we follow Marion Afriat, Klervi Blanchard and Angélique Boucé for five weeks in the Pyrenees, where they explored how to live in harmony with nature in the face of today’s ecological challenges.

There, they met Jean-Paul, Sarah and Diane, whom they took with them on their climb to the peaks. All three are committed to a different approach to caring for living things: repairing, preserving and anticipating.

Their passions inspire the authors and inspire us too, to rethink our relationship with the Living, emphasising the importance of the collective in creating a sustainable future where humanity would coexist harmoniously with the Living to which it belongs.