Title: Monsanto: une Enquête Photographique
Photographer(s): Mathieu Asselin
Writer(s): Mathieu Asselin, Jim Gerritsen, Frédérique Wallis Davy, Jean-Claude Asselin
Designer(s): Mathieu Asselin, Ricardo Baez
Publisher(s): Actes Sud Editions, Arles, France
Year: 2017
Print run:
Language(s): French
Pages: 156
Size: 27 x 30 cm
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: Original edition: Verlag Kettler, Dortmund, Germany, 2017
Print: Printed in Germany
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: U.S.A., 1947-2014
ISBN: 978-2330078058
Going beyond the framework of traditional reportage, this work has therefore been the subject of a beautiful album, an integral part of the exhibition, with a rigorous graphic, literary, aesthetic and geopolitical presentation, accompanied by new and constantly evolving exhibits in the Monsanto ® travel monitoring. The latter revives Stéphane Hessel's slogan "Indignify yourself!" ", to fight against misappropriation by, among others, omnipotent and unpunished multinationals. This is indeed what the artist wanted to witness in a courageous artistic and sociological observation, and without concessions, in search of the legal and human irregularities of the American-German company.
He then addressed the disasters resulting from the use of his agrochemicals: glyphosate and the other agent orange in Vietnam, the health scandals and ecocide caused by these herbicides, and the lawsuits they have brought against all those who have used them. us from the transgenic transformations of GMOs (soya, maize, cotton and rapeseed) with the control of seed patents, the exploitation of farmers around the world, the work on bovine growth hormones, etc... All these discoveries have, over time, proved to be very harmful to the environment and living beings.
It is this ethical question that has guided the spirit of Mathieu Asselin's investigation, with the aim of raising awareness of the damage involved in implementing these scientific protocols, which risk destroying the biodiversity of our planet. He has thus created a polymorphous work embodied in a plastic understanding, and to this end he has produced photographs that immediately speak of this socio-political reality.