BRAOUDE Jonas

THE LAST WILDERNESS...

Today, paradoxically, the more «natural» habitat, untouched «old nature» - if it still exists, even in the depth of a collective memory - retreats against the needs of our consumer society, which always requires more spaces to eat up, the more borders between nature and culture seem porous since we live in a time of genetic modification. 

As the contemporary notion of "nature" seems to be very fragile, today may be more than ever before, the concept of nature has become one of the most cleaving topic -even used sometimes as weapon on the battlefields of ecology- the thesis is rather articulated around the notion of wilderness. The thesis is  an ironic speculation on how a contemporary wilderness can save Nature, while, we are used to consider Nature shall save and shelter wilderness.  Whereas nature is often seen as a frozen and passive ressource intended to be either an artificially preservered wild and virgin territory or an overexploited industrial land, "the last wilderness" is a beginning of an alternative.

 NARRATIVE AND CONTEXT OF THE PROJECT

A new landscape is slowly shaped out the Boanamary coast in the north-west of Madagascar. Aerial roots of the coastal forest, the mangrove, used to be the most precious goods for local ressources. The mangroves forest has always been revered by locals and protected through an ancestral way of life. But, ten years ago, the malagasy gouvernment allowed people to freely use nature as an open ressource. While before only few rich industrials operated the malagasy forest, the rumour of easy money has now spread in the region and beyond, and, the arrival of new ethinc groups and international industries slowly broken ancestral taboos about the use of the forest. The intensive deforestation of Boanamary arrives now to a social, an economical as well as an ecological saturation. The trees used to hold the ground which now eroding massively along with the rythm of the tides to the sea. Madagascar is litterally bleeding. One day, a sad news gaves to local fishermen the strength to resists and reacts agains this threat. Indeed, a child of 14 years old has been killed on the new shrimp farm of the giant Mark and Spencer. The kid used to fish here with his father but this day he has been accused of theft. Shot in the head by a private watchman, he fell and disappeared in one of the pool of the exploitation. The population of fishermen cried: "«You eat shrimps which have grown in the blood of our children»" to us, Marks and Spencser custumers. Madagascar is bleeding again.

In a global context of shrimp farming along with wood exploitation, the generalization of the mangrove deforestation in Madagascar and all around the world could significantly damage the image giant groups such as M&S. The project is conceived as a provocation and a speculation on how M&S is going to redirect the nature of its exploitation in a country torn between two contradictory demands,  in one hand the urge for the development of an aquaculture and for wood operations which would both massively help the economy of the country, and, in an other hand, the need of maintaining the mangrove territory as a «wilderness» and an historical fishing place for the local population.

THE PROPOSITION

The proposition is a pneumatic prothesis for aerial roots of Rhizophora Mucronata, the emblematic local mangrove. This device operates as a prop on the tree and inbetween trees by a set of weaving, converting, day after day, the configuration of a very rich micro-ecosystem in terms of ressources, into a modeled and accessible operating system by the malagasy fishermen. The device allows to interfere at the heart of the growth process of the tree. The «natural mangrove» ecosystem becomes an alternative "wild farm industry" composed of spaces of aquaculture, spaces of circulations, zones of storage and places to rest uppon the roots at high tides, while, at low tides, malagasy fishermen can gather shrimps and little fishes and crabs.The richness of the wild life also allows to harvest and optimize other edible speces such as mangrove oysters grafted on the lower part of the roots.

Personal Blog: http://jonas-braoude.blogspot.fr