Power Up

Amid an ecological crisis, Power Up dives into the universe of energy infrastructure; a sprawling invisible subterranean world that nevertheless structures our way of life and determines our view of the world.

Reversing the history of energy telling of progress through technological innovation, the exhibition looks at the social practices bound up with the tools of production and distribution. In a blend of visual imagination, speculative tales and ideal architecture, Power Up opens fresh perspectives, refracted through the notion of the common good and the female gaze – of artists, historians and researchers long kept at a distance from this world. It suggests another history of technology: more contextualised and intimist, close to the body, to affects, and environmentally conscious. By driving out resistance to utopias, Power Up asks us to nurture our desires for a different future: does changing society mean changing infrastructure? And for that must we begin by changing our imaginations?

With the graphic contribution of Charlotte Vinouze

Power Up, Imaginaires techniques et utopies sociales [Technical Imaginaries and Social Utopias] exhibition is a collaborative artistic project initiated by Géraldine Gourbe and Fanny Lopez, which is being staged in two simultaneous exhibitions, at Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire and La Kunsthalle, Mulhouse. The exhibition at La Kunsthalle runs from 16 February to 28 April, with works by Carla Adra, Jessica Arseneau, Marjolijn Dijkman, Hilary Galbreaith, Maya Mihindou, Jürgen Nefzger, Claude Parent, Liv Schulman, Suzanne Treister and Tomi Ungerer.

With the support of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council

Biography

Géraldine Gourbe

Géraldine Gourbe is a philosopher, an author and a curator working on a historical repair: from feminist countercultures in Southern California to the minimalist canon to a history of European pop art (Les Amazones du pop, Mamac Nice, 2020); or a perspective on the relationship between art and industry in the context of a counter-narrative of the so-called “Trente glorieuses” (Gigantisme, un trait d’esprit, first Dunkerque’s Triennal, 2019). Her publications include a monograph on Judy Chicago, To Sustain the Vision (Ed. Villa Arson and Shelter Press, 2020) and an essay on Simone de Beauvoir, Beauvoir (Ed. Pérégrines, 2022).

Fanny Lopez

Fanny Lopez is a historian of architecture and technology (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne), Professor at ENSA Paris-Malaquais. Her research and teaching activities focus on the spatial, territorial and environmental impact of energy and digital infrastructures, as well as the associated technical imaginaries. Among her books: Dream of a Disconnection, from the Autonomous House to the Auto-energetic City (Ed. La Villette, 2014) translated by Manchester University Press, 2021), The Electric Order, Energetic Infrastructures and Territory (Ed. Métis Presses 2019 – AARHSE prize).