Roundtable #2, broadcast live on Radio 40

As part of a ten-episode podcast programme developed in collaboration with the Lausanne-based webradio Radio 40 and the researcher and art historian Noémi Michel.

The full podcast can be listened to online or read (in excerpts) in our magazine Meute #1.

[Federica Martini]

“The question of taking responsibility and building alliances is essential. It involves making things invisible, making them visible, listening carefully, and sometimes recognising that certain voices are inaudible and cannot be reconstructed. We must nevertheless acknowledge their presence. This is a very interesting exercise for me because it is linked to the ability to perceive detail. And I think the best example I’ve found comes from a physics class. I was once told about the sunflower theory. I don’t often return to physics lessons, but the sunflower theory speaks about the failures of science. When there is sunlight, the sunflower turns towards it. It is a form of response, yet it is always influenced by the fact that a question has been asked. When we think about it, we are always framing something — and therefore excluding something else.

In Teju Cole’s book Blind Spot, he writes that every time we look, we have a blind spot — an angle mort — about the size of an orange and at roughly arm’s length. It is something very close to us, yet it creates distance at the same time. It may sound somewhat theoretical, but for me it always remains a form of questioning, doubt, and distance — something very useful when working within institutions. A principle that allows us to ask the right questions.”

The ten-episode podcast programme was made possible thanks to the generous support of Pro Helvetia and the Swiss Foundation for Radio and Culture (FSRC), in collaboration with Radio 40 and researcher and art historian Noémi Michel.