Arts & Culture in France: the projects changemakers recommend

The selection

• Amélie NothombParis, France“Amélie Nothomb, writer and extraordinary woman. Because her presence in the world of writing is a constant source of inspiration, as is the idea that one can write every single day, each day at dawn, and deliver readers a new book every year, for the sole reason that inspiration never runs dry. Her very existence is a constant reminder of my own laziness.”Recommended by Ilaria Gaspari
• Atelier Berger MilàParis, France“A young Franco-Spanish duo who treat architecture as the tissue between people and their territory. A quiet, exacting practice, from a single room to the fabric of a city.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Bernard StieglerParis, France“A philosopher of technology (1952-2020), Bernard Stiegler saw every tool as both remedy and poison. He championed an economy of contribution in which everyone becomes a producer of knowledge again.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• Fonds ExploreConcarneau, France“They fund the expeditions that help us understand a world we are still learning to protect.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• La ChartreuseAiguenoire, France“They chose to make less so as to stay what they are. That takes courage, and I admire it.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• La MaestraParis, FranceRecommended by Constance Albanel
• Lucas Davaze, Médiation ClimatGRENOBLE, France“He takes people to stand on a dying glacier. Climate stops being an idea and becomes a memory they keep.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Paul Emilieu StudioParis, France“He starts every project from what already exists. Craft and conscience, working together.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Pierre RosanvallonParis, France“Because he built an entire intellectual project around making democracy work better rather than just critiquing it, and because he showed that rigorous scholarship and public engagement are not just compatible but necessary complements.”Recommended by Alberto Alemanno
• Under The PoleConcarneau, France“They dive where science cannot easily reach, and they share everything they find.”Recommended by Florian Guillaume
• Yves CittonParis, France“A professor at Université Paris 8, Yves Citton thinks of attention as an ecology: a scarce resource, captured by the media, that we must cultivate together as a shared environment.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• Éditions WildprojectMarseille, France“Founded in Marseille in 2008, the publishing house Wildproject brought the great texts of ecological thought into French and laid the foundations of the French environmental humanities.”Recommended by Paul Emilieu Marchesseau
• Édouard LouisParis, France“Constantly proving that telling intimate stories, bringing the ordinary to the fore, is an immensely political act.”Recommended by Coralie Custos Quatreville