Open Calls
Every two years, we issue a call for projects that leads to the publication of a collective book, giving all photographers and writers the opportunity to publish. The aim of these calls for projects is to build a book around a subject that we believe is at the heart of contemporary issues. We are always on the lookout for authors willing to entrust us with their lines and eyes.
Out of state: our relationship with the land
The main idea of this project is to think about our relationship with the land.
The earth, which allows us to cultivate, to work, to feed ourselves, to dress – in short: to live collectively – is today the exclusive domaine of big landowners. With intensive livestock farming, monoculture, mass construction of assumed- obsolescent housing units, dehumanisation and slavery of the workforce, … capitalism has a complete hold over farming grounds. It has now become as industrialised as a huge open-air factory, though it evolves into being more and more covered with objects aiming at producing merchandising: multiplication of greenhouse cultivation, of asphalt layers, of large-scale industrial areas and logistics centres.
How can we cultivate our understanding of our environment, and of its ability to create social bonds?
Mankind is part of nature – we must share it, not possess it. All beings are united by interdependence bonds, all species included. Several communities live with this idea. The bonds that we share can take multiple forms, non-specific to humans: life in community, mutual aid, measure/balance, food, colonisation of places, family, sharing, property, aggressivity, violence… Henceforth, these species have a duty to be social, to act together to live, work, support each other, to grow and evolve in a territory that is related to them. A territory that they have defined according to their needs, without making it their own. What mankind needs to make its own is the «egalitarian imagination «* of its society.
Guided by these principles of mutual aid, how can we envisage our relationship with the land on a different scale? Outside the State or any principle of nationhood, how could we find the measure that every being needs to live, and live well?
Many people have inspired us with their revolutionary thoughts to write and share this open call with you. Here is a short list that will give you an idea of where our thoughts are heading for this future book. Peter Kropotkin about mutual aid – Russian anarchist and geographer, Paul et Elisée Reclus – French anarchists, geographers and engineers, Elsa Osorio sur Mika La Capitana - Argentine militant and fighter anarchist, Jean Giono with his letter to the farmers – French writer, Hannah Arendt about human rights – German philosopher, Frédéric Graber et Fabien Locher about the history of environment and property, Aurélien Berlan about the fight for access to resources – French philosopher, Kristin Ross and Social Space – American professor and writer, …
We will be choosing up to 6 projects that stand out for their strength of proposal and their ability to think outside the box. The publishers will be offering the authors the chance to work together along the other participants on a project in which photographic and literary proposals intermingle, dialogue and confront each other.
All projects will be studied with the greatest care.
_
*Introduction to The Force of Nonviolence, Judith Butler, Pluriel, 2023.