« Art and Anthropology for A Living World »
Tim Ingold

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29 mars 2018
École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs – PSL, Paris

Conférence de l’anthropologue Tim Ingold à l’EnsAD en clôture de la journée d’étude « Formes d’écriture et processus de création », dans le cadre du projet de recherche « Prendre le parti des choses : publications hybrides sur les processus de création », dirigé à Ensadlab par Francesca Cozzolino (enseignante-chercheure, Ensadlab/ Lesc) avec la collaboration de Pierre-Olivier Dittmar (maître de conférences, EHESS, Techniques & Culture) et le soutien de l’Université PSL dans le cadre du projet IRIS « Création, cognition et société ».

Conférence en anglais modérée par Sophie Krier (artiste, chercheure associée à Ensadlab) :

Synopsis

Traditionally, the disciplines of anthropology and art have faced in opposite directions: the former dedicated to understanding forms of life as we find them; the latter to the creation of forms never before encountered. This talk is founded on the premise that the traditional opposition is untenable. Not only would the work of art carry no force unless grounded in a profound understanding of the lived world; but anthropological accounts of the manifold ways along which life is lived would also be of no avail unless brought to bear on speculative inquiries into what the possibilities for human life might be. Thus art and anthropology have in common that they observe, describe and create. Their orientations are as much towards human futures as towards human pasts: these futures, however, are not conjured from thin air but forged in the crucible of contemporary social lives.
Their aim is to join with these lives in the common task of fashioning a sustainable world – one that is fits for coming generations to inhabit. By sustainability is not meant the maintenance of human environmental relations in a steady state, but rather the possibility for life to carry on. In such a world, the fashioning of things must also be their infinite aspect, so as to allow every generation to begin afresh. With examples drawn from studies of landscape, craft, building and the performing arts, the implications of this view for the principles and practice of artistic and anthropological research will be discussed.

More information

Official website

Counting Kolams workshop run by Ester Alemany and Alfonso Mulero, Aberdeen Botanical Gardens, Knowing from the Inside (KFI), 2017.

Photos Emile Kirsch.

Texte de l’intervention de Tim Ingold :
Read the academic paper
« Art and Anthropology for a Living World »