EN
Ecologies of Slowness
20.06.2026 – 26.07.2026
On the upper level of the barn, Guillaume Saur presents Écologies de la lenteur [Ecologies of Slowness], an installation composed of several works in which plant matter becomes at once subject, material, and agent of transformation. Poplar, willow, bentgrass, sweet clover, sunflower, fescue: these native plants, selected for their phytoremediation properties, have the ability to absorb, bind, or neutralize certain contaminants found in soil and water. The work is thus rooted in a subterranean temporality—that of biological cycles and invisible forms of repair.
The installation unsettles the boundaries between material, residue, support, and artwork. It brings together printed images colored with plant-based dyes, frames made of paper clay, poplar plinths, concrete fragments embedded with images, seeds, and dried sunflower heads. The plants become, in turn, pigments, imprints, supports, fragments, volumes, archives, or promises of germination. Through these successive states, the work reveals a chain of metamorphoses in which the transformation of matter echoes the slow rhythms of ecological cycles and becomes a site of regeneration.
Guillaume Saur conceives of his works as transfers, in which process reveals traces and makes perceptible the active relationship between an organism and its environment. Echoing the thinking of philosopher Baptiste Morizot, who calls for an awareness of the silent diplomacies of the living world, the artist approaches plants not as mere motifs, but as active presences—beings capable of inhabiting a territory and patiently reshaping its conditions.
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Exhibition text : Gauthier Melin
Photos on the right: Éliane Excoffier