PROGRAM

PROGRAM OF THE DAY

16:00
Open Visit – Conversation, Installation, Screening
Interventions of Séverin Guelpa, Emmanuel Reynard UNIL-CIRM, Nicole de Lalouvière ETHZ, Artists Sonandes (Bolivie): Guely Morató Loredo, Víctor Mazón Gardoqui, Gilmar Gonzalez, Eloísa Paz Prada, Adrián Rodríguez

19:00
Apéro

A WORD FROM THE PARTICIPANTS

Commons and mountains
Common property management is a shared feature of many mountain regions. From water management, to mountain pastures, forests and economic activities such as cheese and bread making, mountain regions offer many examples of community practices. But what are the legal, scientific and social foundations of these modes of ownership and community practices? What are the terminology nuances (collective goods, common goods, common property, etc.)? The notion of commons is rooted in Roman legal thought and inspired by medieval thinking on the common good; it has been strongly influenced by the work of Garrett Hardin on the tragedy of the commons, Robert McC. Netting on resource management in the commune of Törbel (Upper Valais) and Elinor Ostrom on the management of the commons. This conference discusses the notion of commons and its evolution, with some references to the Val d’Anniviers.
_ Emmanuel Reynard

The commons and the community
Place de la Scierie in Grimentz is a privileged place for the listening of the most vital natural resource: water. It is a space flooded with non-human sounds, which invites us to open our perception beyond anthropocentrism. We propose to rethink the semantic constructions made by a given culture, shedding a light on the ontological differences of each worldview; differences that put the notion of a universal truth in crisis. What we understand by the commons has a direct link to how we experience community.
Intercultural coexistence, far from being a problem, rather represents a creative opportunity to build new common territories, thus facing, at last, a global community.
_ Sonandes

Rebuilding the Grand Bisse de St-Luc: New cooperative arrangements and the renewal of the commons
The recently completed renovation of the Grand Bisse de St-Luc involved not only technical rebuilding but also the social reconstruction of cooperative arrangements to support the communal management of irrigation water. This renovation finds its impetus in heritage preservation efforts which led to the application to include traditional irrigation on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list. This project is also part of the growing realisation that the bisse are multi-functional pieces of infrastructure that contribute to the cultural landscape in many ways. Beyond irrigation, they provide ecosystem services that may help address the multiple environmental crises faced by mountain communities today.
_ Nicole de Lalouvière

Rethinking our relationship with the world
We are going through a period of upheaval due to a succession of crises, be they political, social, economic or ecological. In the complexity of analyzing and understanding these profound planetary transformations, the Covid health crisis has added a layer of uncertainty and doubt to the general feeling that we no longer have control over the future or our environment. In Switzerland, as elsewhere, our Western system of thought is showing its limits and a part of the population, in search of reference points, is expressing an urgent need to reconnect with nature and with others.
In this context, what model can the practice of the consortages in Valais and the very particular link of the people to their region, to their resources and to their community inspire us? At a time when one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art (Documenta in Kassel, Germany) is for the first time piloted by a collective of artists from the South and managed according to a model inspired by Indonesian granaries, the community experiences of Valais and Bolivia resonate as true sources of inspiration for the future.
_Séverin Guelpa

CO-ORGANIZER AND PARTNER OF THE EVENT

UNIL-CIRM