Symposium: Environmental History IV
All conferences and performances
May 30 to June 1, 2025
Environmental History IV
Learning from the Unknown
For its fourth edition, the Environmental History symposium at LUMA Arles brings together historians, scientists, artists, architects and designers to explore ecology through a historical lens.
In an era marked by rapid climate change and ecological uncertainty, Learning from the Unknown offers a framework through which to approach some of the complex environmental challenges of our times. Focusing on questions that address the ecological rupture of ecosystems we are currently experiencing, and looking into the ways in which societies have responded to environmental crises through adaptation, resilience and anticipation, the symposium seeks to understand the different forms and patterns of living, creating, and transmitting knowledge that can emerge when we experience unknown and unfamiliar realities.
From melting glaciers to tracing the history of colonial archives, from forgotten catastrophes of the past to climate projections, the symposium will connect diverse fields of expertise in an attempt to understand how societies confront the unknown.

Photo: © Adrian Deweerdt
Talks and performances from the fourth edition
About the speakers from the fourth edition
The symposium brings together historians, scientists, artists, architects, and designers, who explore ecology through a historical lens in a series of talks and exchanges across three days.
Ayesha Hameed
Artist/research associate, Kone Foundation, professor of artistic research, University of Helsinki
Amita Baviskar
Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology
Grégory Quenet
Professor of Environmental History University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
Élodie Royer
Independent curator and doctoral student, École normale supérieure
Catharina Landström
Head of the Science, Technology and Society Division at Chalmers University of Technology
Valérie Masson-Delmotte
Climatologist and former co-director of Group I of the IPCC
Patricia Murrieta-Flores
Co-Director of the Center for Digital Humanities at Lancaster University
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