At the heart of our economic system, the instrumentalization of the power of desire soon became one of its most powerful cogs. Without ever seeking the fulfillment of this desire, the system never ceased to multiply it into so many promises of happiness, horizons of satisfaction impossible to reach. Overconsumption, mass tourism, the depletion of the earth’s resources and technological headlong rush have gradually become the excesses of this new world order.
The exhibition L’économie du désir (The Economy of Desire) brings together some twenty artists committed to making visible the consequences of such a system, particularly from an environmental point of view, such as the concrete structures covering forest areas in Japan, which take on the appearance of gigantic poultices (Julien Guinand), territories in Spain ravaged by the greed of large-scale tourist operations (Sylvain Couzinet-Jacques), or the totally disembodied atmosphere of a dairy farm self-managed by computer software (Sarah del Pino). And in the globalizing logic that defines this system, artists also echo its repercussions on the human level: standardization of behavior (Martin Parr), phenomena of alienation (Cécile Bicler, Rachel Labastie), social inequality (Paul Graham) or the impact of technology on health (Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis)…
Faced with this situation, alternative scenarios emerge, keeping the predicted catastrophe at bay. If the term “desire” has been widely misused, this exhibition seeks to think of it in terms of a new place, a new imaginary. An economy of desire in the sense of a moderation that would enable us to no longer define it as an implacable force to which we would be subjected, but as a new, renewable and creative energy. Alain Damasio’s idea of “fighting on the terrain of desire” is a pleasing one, as it encourages us to re-establish links with others, with the living, and to imagine a future that is once again desirable.