For a Parliament of the Loire

COAL is the happy partner and member of the commission of the interspecific Parliament of the Loire carried by the POLAU. The first hearing was held on October 19.

How can we ensure that, for the first time in Europe, a river and the living and non-living entities that make it up have the possibility of expressing themselves and defending their interests through a system of interspecific representation, human and non-human, in order to give voice to the conflicts that oppose them?

This is what we tried to think with Bruno Latour and Frédérique Aït Touati during the first hearing conducted by Camille de Toledo, and with Virginie Serna and Bruno Marmiroli during the second hearing conducted by Joan Pronnier (COAL).

“There is only fiction to move forward…because you have to invent”
“The question is not to give him rights but to stop denying him rights.”
“What you need is an eye and an ear”
(Bruno Latour)

See you on December 14th for the second audition round, in Blois!

Imagined as a constitutive process for the creation of a Parliament of the river, this project aims to define the forms and functioning of a parliament for a non-human entity – the Loire -, where fauna, flora and different material and immaterial components would be represented.

This process is structured by a series of public hearings that bring together an interdisciplinary commission (composed of people interested in the creation of the Parliament) with professionals (philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, lawyers…) and users of the Loire.

Animated by the writer and jurist Camille de Toledo, this information commission for the creation of a Parliament of non-humans connected to the river invites you to follow its investigative work, to participate and to enrich it.

Members of the Commission :

Camille de Toledo | Writer, lawyer
Bruno Marmiroli | Landscape designer (Val de Loire World Heritage Mission)
Virginie Serna | Archaeologist and chief curator of heritage, in charge of mission (Ministry of Culture)
Stephane Cordobes | Prospectivist (Commissariat général à l’égalité des territoires – CGET)
Joan Pronnier | Project Manager (COAL Art and Ecology Coalition)
Renaud Colin | Deputy Director of development and territorial management (EP Loire)

Auditionees :

#1 – SAT. 19/10/ 2019
14h > 18h | Chapelle Saint-Libert | 37. avenue André Malraux | Tours
Frédérique Aït-Touati | Research Fellow (CNRS)
Bruno Latour | Sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher (medialab of Sciences Po)

#2 – SAM. 14/12/2019 | Location to be announced

#3 – SAM. 21/03/2020 | Location to be announced