NATURE(S) EN CAGE(S). POUR UNE ETUDE ANTHROPOLOGIQUE, HISTORIQUE ET ARTISTIQUE DES VOLIERES Workshop pluridisciplinaire Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, 4-6 février 2019

At a time when the future of avian populations in Europe is threatened and in a global context of major threats to animal and plant biodiversity, our project investigates the relationships between human beings and birds via an original focus of research: aviaries. Aviaries and their numerous cultural forms are rooted in the long history of the domestication and acclimation of birds and animals in general. As an interdisciplinary research focus, they open many doors to past and present relationships between human beings and their environment. They give access to their representations of nature and their place therein, but also to power relations underlying the circulation of things, living beings, techniques, ideas and knowledge within societies and between cultures. We consider aviaries as devices of captivity, exhibition and conservation of birds by humans. From the history of gardens to the anthropology of nature, from global history to post-colonial studies, from architecture to contemporary art, the study of aviaries, both ancient and contemporary, of their collections of live animals and of their artistic and literary representations, presents a fertile terrain for an interdisciplinary approach to conceptions of nature. Three research perspectives intersect: 1) Aviaries as material structures: sensory experiences and aesthetics of the living world; 2) Caged birds, birds in collections: from predation to conservation; 3) Aviaries as symbolic systems: conceptions of nature, moral allegories, incarnations of power. The research perimeter, at first Franco-Italian, fans out following the dynamics of circulation of things, living beings and ideas attached to the former colonial empires and the contemporary world. Aviaries are considered from Antiquity to present days. The program’s objectives are scientific and patrimonial. Its aim is to work on an original research focus – aviaries – previously studied and thought about in a piecemeal and very isolated way in disciplinary terms; to approach it through interdisciplinarity, in order to free its heuristic power (to consider human relationships and environment, the circulation of cultural forms, and the power relations underlying exchanges over time) but also its didactic value (mediation of natural and cultural heritage, awareness of the issue of relationships to living things). Activities are oriented towards academia but also society as a whole. The preparation of an international conference will launch the program’s momentum, framed by cross-cutting projects and thematic workshops which will lead to scientific gatherings, followed by publications. It also includes borader audience events, such as a museum exhibition or virtual realty experiments. The domain will be interdisciplinarity (within the humanities and social sciences and in relation to the life sciences), with a will to train students, and to use emerging technologies (identification of species, 3D modelling, reconstitution of soundscapes).