Pollen (2022)

A project led by MO.CO. Esba — Montpellier’s national higher school of fine arts — and ASFA Athens (Athens School of Fine Arts). Part of the EuroFabrique programme, led by the Rmn – Grand Palais, the École des Arts Décoratifs and ANdEA – the national association of higher art schools, awarded the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2022 label.

POLLEN draws on botanist Francis Hallé’s project to (re)create a primary forest in Western Europe. Notions of growth, renewal and transformation are questioned through the shifting boundaries between nature and culture.

The cycles specific to the plant world — regeneration, reproduction and so on — are used as models for collaboration between participants. Implicitly: how can processes such as fusion, pollination, grafting, fragmentation and propagation become the object of an artistic reappropriation generating many new forms, and thereby allow an art(e)cosystem to emerge?

To increase the potential of this collaboration, the project unfolds across both physical and virtual space. Drawing is used as a material, a tactile language, while the digital space acts as a virtual platform (inspired by video games and the metaverse) producing new forms of exchange.

The absence of hierarchy between these two spaces lets the project grow through a continuous exchange of ideas. Forms coexist, interact, and little by little create new territories.

POLLEN is an invitation to celebrate difference, fragility and the interdependence of all forms of life.

As lead developer, I worked alongside the students to bring their worlds into the virtual space, and built the platform itself: making the world playable, implementing all of its mechanics, and finishing and assembling the whole.