In this work I investigate our psychological perception of nature and how family ties influence this perception now – and in the future. I base my work on the theory of the shifting baseline, also called, concept of “environmental generational amnesia”, which is “the idea that each generation perceives the environment into which it's born, no matter how developed, urbanized or polluted, as the norm”

This project embed the wish of remembering my family as my feelings to nature. A relation to forest lost since decades by our generations. This is an attempt to reconstruct the Nature and my nature as part of my identity. The Striatum is a component of the motor and reward systems, a part of our brain that, among many other things, storage the procedural memory, this “unconscious” motor that control our movements, our decision-making and planning in the everyday life.  Some of the works has been made during Aark (Archipelago Art Residency in Korpo Finland) & Mustarinda Artist Residency program.

Pour la somme additionnée de ses ancêtres qui ont disparu et dont je ne me souviendrai que du nom, je m’imagine ces surfaces, ses terres, ses ensembles naturels disparaître dans le flot incessant du fatras de ma mémoire résiduel. Chaque paysages, chaque cartes de notre monde correspond à chaque surface de peau, chaque épiderme de mon ascendance familiale et qui ont pour point commun, la disparition.
Et qu’à chaque jour qui amène sa peine, chaque jour rapproche l’échéance inévitable de ce souvenir qui s’efface. Une disparition comme une épée de Damoclès, prête à frapper ce striatum. Frapper, comme la pelleteuse qui arrache, retourne et détruit nos paysages, notre nature.
                         


Striatum, The shifting baseline - France, Finland - 2020-2022  © Clément Beraud



© Clément Beraud 2024