solastalgia.
Solastalgia : neologism developed from the English word “solace” derived from the Latin “solacium” with meanings connected to the relief of distress and the suffix “algia” borrowed from “nostalgia” translating as “pain”.
Coined in 2005 by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, the concept describes the feeling of distress or desolation felt in the face of the degradation of one’s everyday natural environment. Solastalgia is characterized by the pain of seeing one’s home disappear, of no longer recognizing in one’s own window the outside that gives us solace. The French philosopher Baptiste Morizot broadens the concept to our “living condition” in the face of environmental metamorphoses. The ephemeral human is now more stable than his environment. Thus, solastalgia becomes “homesickness, but at home”.
Heat waves, land artificialization, bushfires, deforestation, endangered biodiversity, etc., human beings, through their actions and the consequences of their actions, irrevocably transform the natural landscapes that surround us and deteriorate the health of our planet. Facing this destruction, our reactions are many: anxiety, powerlessness, denial, anger, sadness, guilt, etc. These are the emotions that built up the starting point of this series, the emergence of uncertainty and the need to question the values that shaped me. Rather than proclaiming an alarmist and disillusioned speech, I chose to develop the emotional and intimate dimension of my awareness.
My exploration of solastalgia seeks to answer the question expressed by Baptiste Morizot: how can we live in a damaged world, that is to say in exile at home, and give meaning and form to our distress? Here I chose to draw a parallel between two scales of sensation. In the first, I question through the imaginary wandering of a woman and a man in the world of tomorrow the different states I went through during my awareness. The choice of black and white refers to the unreal, thoughts or an uncertain future. With these emotions, I combine color photos reminding me of the solace of a natural and well-known environment of daily life threatened with disappearance.
Sources:
G. Albrecht, Earth Emotions : New Words for a new World, Cornell University Press, 2019
B. Morizot, Ce mal du pays sans exil. Les affects du mauvais temps qui vient, Revue Critique, 2019
awareness anger anxiety
sadness depression
powerlessness
guilt mourning
denial indecisiveness escape
solace imagination
hope
