Maison Malina Residency

Marit Mihklepp’s practice is driven by the aim to bring more-than-human perspectives on an equal level with human experience.
In collaboration with Meredith Root-Bernstein, an ecologist and conservation scientist, CNRS researcher at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, her aim during this two-week residency is to explore the mound, heaps and piles of Paris and their complements, pits, holes and depressions. This research is based on both artistic and scientific field work methods and approaches.

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I do not go often to the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont which I find way too artificial. In this respect, I prefer urban gardens that do not pretend to be wild nature reconstructed. When I go, I tend to pay attention to the people on the meadows and to the trees. This time, looking for “piles”, my gaze was targetted to the ground, to the soil. Everywhere, on the trails and paths, on the meadows but also under the trees and bushes, it is spotless, absolute cleaness, not a single branch or leaf, or anything left unattended. This over tidyness, as if someone had vaccum-cleaned the entire park, creates an uneasyness. As if nature were not fully allowed here, its “organic trash” contained safely in a huge metallic trash bin, like the human plastic trash is in its own container.
I am grateful to Marit and Meredith for having included me into their field-research afternoon. Annick Bureaud

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