Abstract:
The Maison du Patrimoine Oral de Bourgogne is a centre for ethnological and artistic research located in an underpopulated rural area in France. Here we consider human sciences as a possibility for a better living between humans and non-humans. Recognized as an ‘Ethnopole’ by the French Ministry of Culture, the centre focuses on oral transmission and orality and develops hypotheses and action research in order to re-connect communities in a troubled world.
Through reed toys, dandelion stem trumpets, imitation of bird songs, cattle tiaulage and other forms of oral expressions, we can unfold a rich environmental experience in a sparsely populated area. These skillful and artifact-producing actions are part of the practices that bring humans and non-humans together through orality.
Multiple techniques of plaiting and twisting plants are central elements for experiencing our territory. Those weavings are usually solitary practices and use dead material. But one technique is collective and keeps plants alive: the pléchie. This technique of interweaving living branches, often considered as mere folklore or cultural heritage and confined to its role as a fence, may also be thought as an art, leading in a subtle way the other species to reconsider the human-animal-plant relationship.
Bio:
Caroline Darroux is a French anthropologist and director of the Maison du Patrimoine Oral de Bourgogne, member of the French national ‘Ethnopole’ label, part of the regional Morvan Ecomuseum, also hosting a comprehensive regional resource centre. Assisted by a young team of cultural mediators, social sciences researchers and professional and non-professional artists, she promotes a scientific as well as an artistic approach. The current research project La Fabrique sociale orale investigates oral transmission techniques so as to enable humans to reconnect with each other and build up communities in a renewed social structure linked to the Earth.
URL: http://tristan.u-bourgogne.fr/CGC/chercheurs/Darroux/Caroline_Darroux.html