2023-05-21 09:39:26
“That’s a competitive sperm whale!”
It’s trendy, publishers unite sharp scientists and wacky artists to tame knowledge. Thus a new collection at Actes Sud.
While Pome Bernos has never dived with sperm whales, the designer is guided by François Sarano, former member of Commander Cousteau’s team.
DR
More than ever, scientists want to share their experiences. Always more audible, the youngest militate for ecology… enough to give ideas to publishers anxious to conquer new territories. “If we want to show that we are not in our ivory tower, we must give signals by publishing illustrated and non-intimidating works”, affirms in Livres Hebdo, Blandine Genthon, director of CNRS Editions.
Philippe Charlier, successor of the explorer Jean Malaurie at the head of the “Terre Humaine” collection at Plon editions, historical pioneer of this type of popular publication, confirms this necessary openness: “The human and social sciences must not forbid themselves , including hybrid formats, to enable more accessible and complementary approaches”.
Following Dargaud, La Découverte or Le Seuil, the house of Actes Sud is launching “Graphic Worlds”. The label still has only two titles but already exudes a crazy charm. Associating around an animal a field scientist with an artist, the points of view are hybridized in a muscular ping-pong between fantasy that makes sense and factual data that makes you dizzy. The clash of approaches also desecrates the status of expert in each field.
Very elaborate, between science and poetry…
SOUTH ACTS
This is an opportunity to dive into the closest intimacy maintained by researchers with the object of their passion, even to awaken vocations, to initiate the essential patience. The artistic contribution, indisputable weapon of seduction, opens him on the complex choreography of pleasure and erudition, this pas de deux with fragile balance. Because these buggers of animals often tend to escape behind the line of the horizon and yet, impossible here to resort to the usual little tricks. With a biologist as a partner, you have to stick to reality without losing the poetry along the way.
A playful approach that opens the eyes.
SOUTH ACTS
Under his utopian title à la Saint-Exupéry, “Please, draw me a sperm whale”, the oceanographer François Sarano shares, for example, a very serious logbook of the activities of Irène, Issa, Mina, Caroline and other cetaceans from 2011 to 2019. Anthropomorphism stops at first names, even if the biologist differentiates between joker or nagging, curious specimens, even adventurers or, on the contrary, resilient specimens. Anecdotes abound. “An entire book would not be enough to transcribe all this,” he admits.
“The sperm whales sleep next to each other, erect like menhirs, it’s Carnac, 20 meters under the skin of the ocean.”
In permanent support, the drawings of Pome Bernos suggest vertiginous abysses. And yet, as if the complicity of knowledge caused a unique boost of energy, the data becomes as digestible as the squid swallowed by these marine giants. From scientific observations to poetic flights, a whole world arises. See the episode of “Dormeurs du val” punctuated by the verses of Rimbaud, a moment of pure amazement: “The sperm whales sleep next to each other, erect like menhirs, it’s Carnac, 20 meters under the skin of the ‘ocean”. Listing migrations, genealogies, landing under the stars, this trip to the sperm whales, with its flat loneliness, its swarming of figured graphs, offers itself with a rare originality.
A new collection at Actes Sud, combining scientific rigor and graphic fantasy.
SOUTH ACTS
“The Bear, a little humorous treatise for human use” demonstrates that the osmosis of talents can be practiced on the terrestrial mode. Passionate regarding the Arctic, author of “The Bear, the other of man”, seasoned explorer, Rémy Marion seduced Olivier Lavigne, accomplished “dadasophist”, graphic designer established in a village in the Ardèche. Together, they revisit the den of the plantigrade, its folklore, its mythology, its anecdotes. Less learned than Michel Pastoureau who detailed the plantigrade in his classic “History of a fallen king”, the book plays the comforters a little schoolboys. But it is the bet of this collection to improvise new forms of documentary stories with a strong ecological content. To be continued.
“Please draw me a sperm whale”
Pome Bernos & François Sarano
“The bear, a little humorous treatise for the use of humans”
Olivier Lavigne & Remy Marion
Ed. Actes Sud, Wild Worlds
Each volume has its own style according to the associated pairs.
SOUTH ACTS
Everything you need to know regarding the sperm whale, and even what you didn’t suspect.
DR
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