"It is important to revive the debate on climate through imaginaries"

At the end of the month, the Écotopiales will return to the University of Lausanne for a second edition. This research-creation festival aims "to explore the multiple relationships we maintain with the living through stories and imaginaries."

The event echoes a column published earlier this year by Adèle Thorens Goumaz: "We do not only need technological solutions, but also new narratives, new imaginaries that motivate us to make responsible decisions," wrote the former member of the National Council and of the Council of States, now a HES professor at HEIG-VD.

We discuss it with Colin Pahlisch, the festival's artistic director.

At present, many believe that society needs a new narrative — more optimistic and less anxiety-inducing about the climate. Do you share this view?

I do not know whether it is relevant to speak of a single narrative. Thinking that simply telling the right story would instantly make the future more desirable and halt the disastrous effects of global warming seems — unfortunately — illusory, even risky. That said, I share the observation that the majority of the narratives offered to us today about the climatic future are largely pessimistic.

In response to this observation, a first avenue would be to question the effects produced by this catastrophic meta-narrative. Feeding an exclusively dark vision of the future has an anesthetizing effect: it tends to discourage any desire for action, whether individual or collective. Yet solutions exist, and it is not too late to change mindsets!

Creating other narratives implies listening to alternative and plural voices, cultivating them and spreading them, so as not to give in to the anxiety-inducing visions of the future that paralyze us. It is from the sum of these perspectives that a new and shared narrative may emerge.

Many contemporary works of fiction — novels, series, films, etc. — also present dark and apocalyptic realities. A paradox?

Not necessarily. On the one hand, because factually the current climate situation is far from encouraging: it is now almost certain that we will not manage to respect the 1.5 °C limit of global warming set by the Paris Agreement — which Switzerland nevertheless signed!

On the other hand, from a strictly fictional point of view, danger, hostility or fear are powerful narrative devices that fascinate and enhance immersion. It is therefore understandable that the cultural industries seize on them.

The whole question is what we do with these representations as spectators. Should we adhere to a univocal vision of the future, or rather draw from them the desire to question it?

Of course, not everything can rest on individual responsibility. Cultivating the idea of another possible world is also the responsibility of educational institutions, notably the university. As a festival open to all audiences, we hope that the Écotopiales contribute to this mission.

Works of fiction have often fulfilled this democratic function: they make it possible to imagine another society, to question what is, in order to imagine what could be — for better or for worse.

Can fiction really come to the rescue of reality?

Yes, especially when reality appears to us as having no way out. Since time immemorial, myths and legends have served to interpret the world, to offer a reading that allows opposing the anxiety of the unknown with an intelligible and meaningful model. In many respects, this is still the case today.

In the face of the climate crisis, a novel like Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry for the Future" fully fulfills this role: it presents to readers, in the form of a narrative, lines of action — economic, technical, social — already in germinal form in our present. It is also a novel that carries us away, a literary feat.

One of the current problems is that our society appears deeply divided, particularly on climate issues. How could we reconnect the debate?

Imaginaries indeed represent a crucial stake in the ecological transformation of society, insofar as they open a space for dialogue between diverse readings of the world. Works of fiction have often fulfilled this democratic function: they make it possible to imagine another society, to question what is, in order to imagine what could be — for better or for worse.

At the crossroads of disciplines, our festival brings together both artists and scientists, with the idea of exploring what creation can bring to science, and vice versa. It is important to reconnect the debate on the climate through imaginaries, because they have precisely the virtue — or the power — of addressing our emotions as much as our intellects.

People often say that scientists have a very Cartesian mind… How do you connect these two worlds — science and imaginaries?

This is an essential question, you are right. It refers to what the anthropologist Philippe Descola calls "naturalism": an ontology specific to Western societies which, to put it briefly, accords reason a higher value than affects and emotions in our relationship to the world. Yet there are emotions in every piece of scientific research — and rationality in every artistic creation!

In this sense, our festival aims to be a laboratory. With researchers from UNIL, we have designed collaborative creation workshops, free and open to all audiences, in which participants can experiment with different approaches to storytelling — through cinema, dramaturgy or creative writing... It's a way to shift the lines, to "jump the barrier." And to know whether it works, the best is still to try!

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