Manon Lanjouère
News
Exhibition

P·O·E·M installation as part of the Photoclimat biennial.
Mixing sculpture, light and the photographic series Les Particules, the installation takes the form of a molecule and the DNA pattern, evoking the idea that with plastic and chemical pollution, humans are changing the very essence of the ocean.On display from September 14th to October 15th at the Académie du Climat, 2 place Baudoyer, 75004 Paris. Free entry : Monday-Tuesday 9am-9pm ; Wednesday-Saturday 9am-00pm
Public vernissage on October 4th from 6pm at Académie du Climat
Mixing sculpture, light and the photographic series Les Particules, the installation takes the form of a molecule and the DNA pattern, evoking the idea that with plastic and chemical pollution, humans are changing the very essence of the ocean.On display from September 14th to October 15th at the Académie du Climat, 2 place Baudoyer, 75004 Paris. Free entry : Monday-Tuesday 9am-9pm ; Wednesday-Saturday 9am-00pm
Public vernissage on October 4th from 6pm at Académie du Climat

Publication

Les Particules, le conte humain d’une eau qui meurt
1st publication of the collection CIVIS MARITIMUS of The Eyes Publishing
Graphic design : Sarah Boris Studio
Preface : Michel Poivert
Interview : Manon Lanjouère & Ika Paul-Pont conducted by Andreina De Bei
20 x 28 cm
french & english
35€
ISBN : 979-10-92727-58-6
available on October 9th 2023
1st publication of the collection CIVIS MARITIMUS of The Eyes Publishing
Graphic design : Sarah Boris Studio
Preface : Michel Poivert
Interview : Manon Lanjouère & Ika Paul-Pont conducted by Andreina De Bei
20 x 28 cm
french & english
35€
ISBN : 979-10-92727-58-6
available on October 9th 2023

Talk & Conferences
- Prix Photographie & Science : Tuesday September 12th at 6:30 pm , meeting and screening of the first two winners of the Prix Photographie & Sciences #2021 and #2022 (with Richard Pak).
At the ADAGP, 11 rue Duguay Trouin, Paris. - Les Grandes Rencontres du Salon de la Photo : Photography & Science, a talk with Andreina de Bei Deputy Editor-in-Chief, photo at Science & Avenir La Recherche. On Friday October 6th, 4-5 pm, at Auditorium Boris Vian, Grande Halle de la Vilette, Paris.
Press article in DNA
par Veneranda Paladino le 11.05.2023
english translation below ︎︎︎

SCIENCE AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Winners of the Photography & Science Award, Manon Lanjouère and Richard Pak present their plastic and photographic works at the Strasbourg gallery Stimultania. Disconcerting and fascinating, they expose the consequences of predation and pollution between the island of Nauru and the ocean.
The ocean is the link between the winners of the young Photography & Science Prize. Their artistic approach may differ, but Manon Lanjouère, the 2022 winner, and Richard Pak, the previous year's winner, share a common political purpose. The criticism of the misdeeds and consequences of a system of resource exploitation based on predatory and polluting capitalism. However, there is nothing frontal in their works, which borrow, for one, from fable and notably the poetics of 19th century herbariums, but also from sculpture for the other.
Cyanotype and phosphoric acid
We immerse ourselves in the abyss with the young sailor Manon Lanjouère, who is moored just a stone's throw from the Tour Solidor in Saint-Malo. Her stage design is theatricalizing a work in progress, Les Particules. It is an anticipation story that shows a marine world made entirely of plastic. This project also led her, in the autumn of 2021, on the scientific schooner Tara, off the coast of Brazil. Plastic pollution is in fact a known but little-known subject," points out Manon Lanjouère. Microplastics have a greater impact on the microscopic organisms that inhabit the ocean. Like phytoplankton, which is of prime importance in the organisation of our ecosystem," says the artist. Although she no longer uses plastic, she collects its waste on the beaches, in the rubbish bins - straws, badminton shuttlecocks, cotton buds can be seen in a separate space in the exhibition. These plastic materials are used to create new forms representative of microbiomes and plankton. Photographed on the cyanotype principle, they are decorated on the second glass plate with touches of luminescent paint that live in the oceans. Inspired by Anna Atkins' British Algae herbarium, Manon Lanjouère shifts the scientific message to a mise en abyme of a nature damaged by Man.

Press article in CNRS Le Journal
Par Sébastien Chavigner le 28.04.2023 ︎︎︎
english translation below ︎︎︎






Terribly real Illusions
Winner of the 2022 Photography & Science prize, Manon Lanjouère presents Les Particules, le conte humain d’une eau qui meurt, a fascinating work resulting from a month's stay on board the schooner Tara, which travels the world's oceans to conduct environmental research. Her cyanotypes, a real trompe-l'oeil, show us microscopic underwater species... which are in reality assemblages of plastics recovered from the oceans. We dump more than 8,000 tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year, of which only 1% remains on the surface," she explains. "The rest sinks, and above all breaks down into microplastics, often invisible to the naked eye, which have a terrible impact on phytoplankton and other underwater species and affect our atmosphere and our food, for example. It is this drama that I seek to alert us to, by forcing the viewer to come closer to see the deception and to reflect on it."
Aesthetically, the use of the cyanotype technique is a tribute to the British botanist Anna Atkins, whose famous herbarium British Algae became a reference in the 19th century; moreover, all the false "species" presented by Manon Lanjouère bear a Latin name, reinforcing the deception. "The aim is to make us question the veracity of the photographic object," she says. "The history of photography is closely linked to that of science, and the image is often taken as a guarantee of veracity. There are therefore several levels of reading in my work, and I provide the keys throughout the exhibition, thanks in particular to texts written with the scientists with whom I have collaborated."
A fruitful collaboration that should continue, according to the main interested party: "I have always found science magical," she smiles. As a child, I was always leafing through encyclopaedias and scientific illustrations... And this has been part of my work since the beginning, with a marked passion for the 19th century. As a Breton, it was logical for me to turn to the ocean, and I intend to continue this exploration for a few more years, always taking an interest in pollution, which is a subject very close to my heart". This will certainly be done in 3D, by going into the field of sculpture, to complete her herbarium, which already includes some thirty pieces, the most beautiful of which will be exhibited in Strasbourg.
[ ... ]

Press article in Sciences Et AvenirPar Andreina De Bei le 11.12.2022 ︎︎︎
english translation below ︎︎︎







Photography & Science Prize 2022: poetic manifesto against microplastic
The project "Les Particules, le conte humain d'une eau qui meurt" (Particles, the human tale of a dying water) has won the Prix Photographie & Sciences 2022, co-organised by the Résidence 1+2 Toulouse, the CNRS and the ADAGP. The winner, Manon Lanjouère, will continue her work combining art and science on the subject of microplastic pollution in the oceans.
On 15 October 2022, during the conference organised by the Résidence 1+2 Toulouse, Manon Lanjouère was chosen as the winner of the second edition of the Photography & Science Prize. This initiative brings together Sciences et Avenir-La Recherche, the CNRS, and the ADAGP (Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts), among others, in a partnership with the Toulouse Residence initiated in 2015. CASDEN, Picto Foundation and Stimultania, a photography centre based in Strasbourg, are also participating, and will exhibit the winning works in April 2023. The grant of 7,000 euros should enable a photographer to complete a project in connection with scientific research. The documentary precision and quality of the work presented by the candidates for the 2022 prize, which we were able to observe by participating in the final jury, confirm the growing attraction of the sciences for highly involved artists. Even in disciplines as far from the public as nuclear fusion: a special mention was given to Ezio D'Agostino's Sun Dog series, built around the thermonuclear reactor ITER.
"Les Particules, le conte humain d'une eau qui meurt" (The particles, the human tale of a dying water)
As for the winner, she has established herself with a long-term project, "Les Particules, le conte humain d'une eau qui meurt", started during an artistic residency on board the schooner Tara, which criss-crosses the waters of the globe in research expeditions conducted under the sign of environmental protection. Thanks to this grant, she will continue her artistic restitution of the Herculean hunt for microplastics that massively pollute the oceans: "Cradle of our life, the ocean is slowly being transformed into the tomb of Man... Because of their very small size, these particles slip through the net and unfortunately cannot be recovered. We are faced with a theatre of activity of underwater life suffocated by plastic, a new 'vegetation' of nightmares", says Manon Lanjouère. The young artist with roots in theatre has been combining scientific, literary and historical inspirations since her early days in photography, and translates them into an inventive and subtle interdisciplinary plastic practice, mixing sculptures, collages of old documents, sounds, installations…
The cyanotypes on glass already produced in the first part of her project - recently exhibited by the Galerie du jour agnès b. at the Salon Approche in Paris - take up the iconography of natural history plates, images in microscopy captioned for identification and archival purposes. It is the work of collecting and studying samples of marine micro-organisms, carried out by the Tara Oceans researchers, that is used here by the artist, thanks to a good dose of intelligence, commitment, observation, and a zest of mischievous delicacy. Manon Lanjouère surprises the eye and strikes the imagination with an inversion of reality, by reconstituting the shapes of the oceanic microbiome with plastic objects that are omnipresent in our daily lives.
A dramatic story told in a poetic way
Cotton buds, washed up by the millions on our beaches (and now banned from sale), turn into Asterionellopsis glacialis (Castracane), an intriguing creature with star-shaped cells. The drinking straws, a mortal danger for the fish that ingest them, include Tubularia indivisa (Great Tubularia), a plankton-feeding hydra. And the assembly of shower sieves is a close approximation of Emiliania huxley, a unicellular alga that the artist has also fashioned in 3D. Manon Lanjouère's talent is to use the artistic gesture as an instrument to raise awareness of the most serious social issues, without the intention weighing the work down, and by using science as an evocative base... Isn't telling a dramatic story in a poetic way the hallmark of art?

Residency on board schooner Tara
After a month on board the scientific schooner Tara between Salvador and Rio de Janeiro to observe research on microbiomes, my year 2022 has been occupied with the realization of my project entitled Les Particules which proposes to shed light on the plastic pollution of the ocean and its impact on microorganisms.
click here to listen the podcast on my experience on board ︎ (french)
After a month on board the scientific schooner Tara between Salvador and Rio de Janeiro to observe research on microbiomes, my year 2022 has been occupied with the realization of my project entitled Les Particules which proposes to shed light on the plastic pollution of the ocean and its impact on microorganisms.
click here to listen the podcast on my experience on board ︎ (french)
