The duo of artists G&K, Katarzyna Kot and Stéphane Guiran, set out to meet the “Grands Vivants”, which translates as Great Living Ones (glaciers, forests, rivers, and so on) in order to create works that blend poetry and reconnection, repairing our ties with nature and inspiring us to be human on Earth in another way. Inspired by Glenn Albrecht's Symbiocene, they advocate a way of being that is guided by the meaning of our actions and nourished by hope, aware of the destiny we share with all living things. "Rediscovering the emotion, the wonder, the feeling of symbiosis with nature is what cleanses us inside, what repairs us profoundly. It is the foundation of any societal transformation towards a world that respects living things, and the key to overcoming our sense of powerlessness in the face of climate change. By feeling our deepest connection to the Earth, it becomes natural for each of us to rethink our choices, to agree to transform ourselves by favouring behaviours that make sense”, they explain.
In 2024, the artists spent two months in residence in the extraordinary old-growth Bialowieza Forest in Poland, the last in Europe. The Puszcza Bialowieska has been regenerating on its own for 12,000 years, thanks to an age-old ecosystem and exceptional biodiversity. Home to men and women since the end of the Ice Age, it remains one of Europe's rare examples of a lasting and respectful relationship between humans and the rest of the living world.
A place of transformation and healing, the Puszcza revealed itself to the artists through encounters with inspiring local people, passionate scientists and the tradition of the Szeptuchy, healers whom the artists named "murmuring women". The duo witnessed the transformation of local residents through existential issues: through their stories, they discovered the wounds suffered by the Puszcza with the felling of trees up until 2017, and the current crisis of migrants arriving through the Belarusian part of the forest. The testimonies they gathered show the extent to which this living place encourages us all to question the meaning of our actions, and to realise that all living things on this planet form a community of destiny, what Achille Mbembe calls an “earthly community”.
In light of this experience, the artists have designed a series of works. First, a documentary film recounting their encounters and the poetic gestures that linked them to the Puszcza. Then, an immersive interactive installation to share in the most moving moment of their residency: a ritual of reconnection with the forest in a work of land art set to resonance by vibraphonist Pascal Schumacher and the voice of singer Karolina Cicha. The interactive dimension, created in collaboration with Lilian Guiran and the Isotone Studio in Montreal, allows everyone to connect with the forest and feel it through an experience that expresses multiple realities - sensory, synaesthetic and poetic –with what the artists consider to be a living place, endowed with a conscience and the capacity to interact with us. Lastly, a series of drawings and photographs inspired by their exchanges with the forest and the encounters and testimonies they gathered.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
G&K (Stéphane GUIRAN and Katarzyna KOT)
FRANCE
The G&K duo (Stéphane Guiran and Katarzyna Kot) came into existence at the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire during the 2022 Art Season. From this meeting emerged the desire to embark on a path of common creation, meditating with the Earth and offering another view of the challenges we face with climate change. The two artists see tomorrow as a new chapter that is opening, inviting us to imagine other, more harmonious ways of being in the world, in resonance with Glenn Albrecht's concept of the symbiocene.
"We set out to meet what we call the Grands Vivants, those immense, sensitive natural areas that are both wonderful and fragile, such as glaciers, old-growth forests, rivers, and so on... We listen to their ancient memory, questioning our place in a community of destiny with all the other living beings on our planet, so that we can rethink the future, repair our link to the living world and rediscover meaning.”
They first created a series of works inspired by the Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland (La nuit est une page blanche, 2023). Then, in autumn 2024, the duo immersed themselves in Europe's last old-growth forest, the Bialowieza Forest in Poland. This experience led to a documentary, drawings and photographs, and an installation where the public can relive a musical ritual created in a work of land art, in the heart of the forest. The interactive dimension, created in collaboration with Lilian Guiran and the Isotone Studio in Montreal, allows the public to experience a synaesthetic and poetic moment of reconnection with nature.
In 2023, the duo set up the Grands Vivants association, to help support the living places that they go to encounter. With the support of the Fondation Lemarchand and the collaboration of the Spygen laboratory, headed by scientist Benjamin Allegrini, their work in the Bialowieza Forest has made it possible to produce the first map of living organisms using environmental DNA in an old-growth European forest.
Katarzyna Kot was born in Poland in 1978 and lived in Luxembourg for over 20 years. She grew up with a very close connection to the forest, which inspires and deeply inhabits her creations. Her installations, woven from plants gathered in the woods, open a space between her approach as a sculptor and her broader vision of living things. Imbued with a deep connection to the Earth, her mandalas or Roues de l’Existence are meditations made with the living, in a process of reconnection with a Whole that invites us to find our centre.
Works presented at the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire for the 2022 Art Season: Les Roues de l’existence (Unité I, Migration, Mouvement perpétuel).
Born in 1968 in France, Stéphane Guiran lives and works between Barjac and Luxembourg. After graduating from the ESSEC in 1991, he changed directions in 2001 and dedicated himself to sculpture. His dreamlike installations bring the public into a sensitive universe in which stones, crystals and all nature’s materials come to life. They participate with the viewer in a choreography that sparks deep emotion. His creations are simultaneously plastic, audiovisual, sound and literary. They are constructed like narratives, offering an intimate journey that invites us to reconnect with ourselves, particularly through the place restored to dreams and poetry.
Artworks presented at the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire: Le nid des murmures (2017, Stables Indoor Ring, permanent work), Le chant des ormes (2022 Art Season), Le rêve des neiges éternelles (2022, Le Bois des Chambres Hotel, permanent work).
The G&K duo is represented by Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier, Paris.
