ÉRIC LAMBIN

Geographer, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and at Stanford University

His talk
The lasting influence of foraging on our relationship with nature.
From the shift of hunter-gatherer societies to farming, up to the present revival of certain foraging practices, he asks what that long history has left in our relationship with nature.

His career
A geographer and professor at the Université catholique de Louvain and Stanford University, Éric Lambin studies the interactions between human activities and the natural environment. His research has focused in particular on tropical deforestation, environmental policy and, today, the territorial implications of the energy transition. He has also served as Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission.

MATHILDE SIMON

Doctor of plant biology, ethnobotanist and author

Her talk
Foraging as an act of cooperation and reciprocity.
Recognising plants, understanding their habitats and respecting their rhythms: she sees foraging as a sensory experience able to change the way we inhabit landscapes.

Her career
With a doctorate in plant biology and training in ethnobotany, Mathilde Simon is an author and the founder of L'Écho sauvage, where she teaches how to identify and use edible and medicinal wild plants. Her work combines popular science, ecological knowledge and attentiveness to the living world. She is also a member of the Institut Michel Serres.

FRANÇOIS COUPLAN and KEIKO IMAMURA

Ethnobotanist and traditional Japanese chef

Their talk
What plants have to tell us.
From the history of our relationship with plants to the sansai still eaten in Japan, they show how a forager's knowledge can feed a more conscious relationship with the plant world, without setting tradition against modernity.

Their careers
François Couplan is an ethnobotanist, writer and specialist in the traditional uses of wild and cultivated plants, which he has been studying for several decades on five continents. Founder of the Collège Pratique d'Ethnobotanique, he is the author of more than 125 books.

Originally from Nagoya, Keiko Imamura is a chef of traditional Japanese cuisine and a tea ceremony master. A specialist in sansai, the wild plants traditionally eaten in Japan, she works alongside François Couplan on the courses and training sessions of the Collège Pratique d'Ethnobotanique.

ANAÏS TONDEUR

Artist

Her talk
Haunting the edges.
From the Land of Fires to Chernobyl by way of the soils of Vesuvius, she devises protocols that make the traces left by plants perceptible and question less extractive ways of relating to the living world.

Her career
Anaïs Tondeur develops an artistic practice focused on the invisible materialities of air, climate and environments. At the crossroads of photography, alchemy and care, she works in collaboration with researchers in the social sciences and Earth sciences. Her work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, the MEP and the Kröller-Müller Museum, among others.