Environmental History IV symposium
Learning from the Unknown

Le Magasin Électrique
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Environmental History 
4th edition
Learning from the Unknown
From Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1, 2025

From disappearing glaciers to colonial archives, from forgotten catastrophes to tomorrow’s fictional narratives, this symposium explores how societies, past and present, confront the unknown.

Through a diversity of approaches—archaeology, history, sociology of risk, literature, art, and architecture—researchers, artists, architects, and theorists will explore the narratives, aesthetics, and collective strategies for imagining other ways of navigating the unknown.

Program


Free entrance (booking available soon)
Note: All conferences are simultaneously translated (FR > EN)
 

Friday, May 30, 2025
From 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
 

With:

  • Diébédo Francis Kéré, Architect, Pritzker Prize 2022 laureate

  • Grégory Quenet, Professor of Environmental History, UVSQ, Paris-Saclay University


Saturday, May 31, 2025
From 2:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
 

With:

  • Amita Baviskar, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology, Ashoka University

  • Radha D'Souza, Professor of Law, Westminster University, UK

  • Catharina Landström, Head of Division, Chalmers University of Technology

  • Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Research Director at CEA and former Director of the group I at IPCC

  • Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Co-Director, Digital Humanities Centre, Lancaster University

  • Eléni Myrivíli, Chief Heat Officer, UN-Habitat

  • Bas Smets, Landscape Architect, LUMA Arles


Sunday, June 1, 2025
From 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
 

With:

  • Olivier Dangles, Research Director, Center of Functional and Evolutive Ecology (CEFE), Montpellier

  • Matthieu Duperrex, Associate Professor in Human and Social Sciences, École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Marseille

  • Magdalena Grüner, PhD Candidate, Hamburg University

  • Joana Hadjithomas, Artist

  • Khalil Joreige, Artist

  • Christophe Leclercq, Lecturer, École du Louvre

  • Élodie Royer, Curator and PhD Candidate, École Normale Supérieure

  • Paul-André Rosental, Professor of History, Sciences Po, Paris

  • Thomas Schlesser, Director, Hartung-Bergman Foundation

  • Skylar Tibbits, Founder, Self-Assembly Lab, MIT

  • David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London

Speakers

Amita Baviskar, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology at Ashoka University

Bas Smets, Landscape Architect of LUMA Arles' Landscape Park

Catharina Landström, Head of Division, Chalmers University of Technology

Christophe Leclercq, Lecturer in Art History and Digital Humanities, École du Louvre

David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL)

Diébédo Francis Kéré, Architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize

Eléni Myrivíli, Chief Heat Officer for the United Nations Human Settlements Programme

Élodie Royer, Independent Curator and PhD Candidate, École Normale Supérieure

Grégory Quenet, Professor of Environmental History, UVSQ, Paris-Saclay University

Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Artists and Filmmakers

Jonas Staal, Artist

Magdalena Grüner, Historian

Matthieu Duperrex, Associate Professor in Human and Social Sciences, École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille

Olivier Dangles, Research Director, Center of Functional and Evolutive Ecology (CEFE), Montpellier

Paul-André Rosental, Professor of History, Sciences Po, Paris

Radha D’Souza, Professor of Law at Westminster University, UK

Skylar Tibbits, Engineer, Co-Director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT

Thomas Schlesser, Art Historian and Novelist, Director of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation

Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Research Director at CEA and former Director of the group I at IPCC

Past editions

Environmental History symposium I
Thursday, August 25 to Friday, August 26, 2022

How do societies develop their understanding of the environment through processes of interdependency? Why is it important to analyze the past and present of our environmental thinking at this moment in time? How can we reposition the notion of non-human agents— whether these be animals, forests, soil, air, or bacteria—as key protagonists in historical processes? 

Replay of the conferences


Environmental History symposium II
From Saturday, May 27 to Sunday, May 28, 2023

For its second edition, the Environmental History symposium asked the questions: Which narratives, which poetics and which history for the Earth? These problematics will frame the different approaches to understanding fragile ecosystems, land use, and the ways in which these environments were perceived historically through poetry and prose.

Replay of the conferences

 

Environmental History symposium III
From Saturday, May 24 to Sunday, May 26, 2024

Starting from the premise that industrial societies had profoundly damaged landscapes and ecosystems, the third edition explored an important question: What could emerge in our damaged landscapes when the increasing impermeability of soil, global-scale urbanism and densification, and vast deforestation were existentially at odds with the idea of a garden as a designed landscape of mediation between nature and culture?

Replay of the conferences

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