Pierre de Vallombreuse, photographer – France

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Eager to be a witness of his time and his contemporaries and inspired by Joseph Kessel, Pierre de Vallombreuse has become one of the most important native peoples photographer of the world. He is the friend, ambassador and photographer of these people. He has shared twenty seven years of his life with forty six of these communities and created the first world-wide documentary fund: a huge database of over more than 140,000 photographs.

Spokesman of these people, committed player on the ecological scene, he draws attention to the importance of these native people who are often the first victims of the ecological disasters: lack of food, deforestation, global warming, pollution… all these crucial questions which, far from being local, concern the whole of humanity. His everyday struggle is to raise awareness about global warming and to preserve the vital link between man and nature.

Pierre de Vallombreuse has published many books and is exhibited in France, India, Bolivia, etc. He has won numerous awards, from the first prize at the Golden Island International Film Festival Adventure, Bailly, 2000, to the first prize at the International mountain and adventure film festival, Graz (Austria), 2001, or the Leonard de Vinci prize by the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1993.

www.pierredevallombreuse.com

www.franceculture.fr/personne-pierre-de-vallombreuse.html

David Kobia, social entrepreneur – USA, Kenya

Member of Le Conclave 2014

David Kobia is the cofounder of Ushahidi, the trustee of iHub_Nairobi and the manager of BRCK.

Ushaihidi is a non-profit software company that develops free and open-source software for information collection, and interactive mapping for use in crisis response. It helps media, governments, NGOs and social movements to deal with earthquakes, wildfires, floods, social crisis, and citizen mobilization. One of its tools, Crowdmap, has a large application, allowing anybody to build a map using a collaborative method. Ushahidi won the NetSquared N2Y3 Mashup Challenge in 2008, received the MacArthur Award in 2013 and the Global Adaptation Index Prize in 2012.

iHub Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community is an open space for the technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area.

BRCK is a team of software developers, engineers and technologists who are from Africa and live there.

In 2010, David was a recipient of MIT Technology Review’s TR35 award (35 top innovators under 35) and the Humanitarian of the Year award. In 2011, he accepted a Webby Award on behalf of Ushahidi.

www.ushahidi.com

www.brck.com/about

www.ihub.co.ke

Lucy + Jorge Orta, artists – United Kingdom, Argentina, France.

Members of Le Conclave 2014

Lucy and Jorge Orta’s collaborative practice draws upon urgent ecological and social sustainability issues to create artworks employing diverse media, including drawing, sculpture, installation, couture, painting, silkscreen, photography, video and light, as well as staged ephemeral interventions and performances. Water, biodiversity, food, climate change, freedom of movement and world-wide citizenship are at the heart of their work.

One of their major work is the Passport Antarctica of world-wide citizenship, signed by the artists themselves, which takes the Antarctic as a universal symbol of the common good, of preserving the environment and of freedom of movement. They have already delivered it to 60 000 people. Amongst their most emblematic series are: Refuge Wear and Body Architecture, portable minimum habitats bridging architecture and dress; HortiRecycling, exploring the food chain in global and local contexts; 70 x 7 The Meal, concerning the ritual of dining and its role in community networking; Nexus Architecture, establishing alternative modes of the social bond; Clouds and OrtaWater, addressing the increasing scarcity of this vital resource.

Their last performance, Battleships, in Beijing (Ullens Center of Contemporary Art) delt with the control of natural resources in the poles. For this project the artists received the Green Leaf Award in 2007 for artistic excellence with an environmental message, presented by the United Nations Environment Program.

Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artwork has been the focus of major solo exhibitions at the Venice Biennale (1995); Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Vienna Secession (1999); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2005); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006); the Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia, and the Antarctic Peninsula (2007); Shanghai Biennale (2012); MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2012); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2013); and Parc de la Villette, Paris (2014).

www.studio-orta.com

creative.arte.tv/fr/lucy-jorge-orta

Cédric Carles, entrepreneur – France

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Passionate about energy concerns, Cédric Carles uses his SolarSoundSystem (100% autonomous DJ booth, powered by solar and dynamo energy) to promote a different ecology and a culture of commitment. Thanks to his invention, he develops an unprecedented alliance of ecology, conviviality and solidarity.

SolarSoundSystem projects are all around the world (Haiti, India, Brazil, Cameroun, and Taïwan), and have been certified by UNESCO Switzerland under the category of “The decade of United Nations for the Education of sustainable development”. Cédric also created ITEX (“ITinerant EXposition”, or, “Mobile Exhibition”), an NGO dedicated to educating schools on renewable energy/energy efficiency. His critical reflection on energy technology and progressive living has aroused the Department of Research of the Cité du Design’s interest as well as the Leroy Martin think tank, with whom he currently collaborates.

Cédric wears several hats: designer, first-aid energy worker, independent researcher in sciences and technology history, and DJ. When he presses the Play button, the ecological transition is on fire.

www.atelier2ce.org

Tariq Al-Olaimy, social entrepreneur – Bahrain

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Tariq Al-Olaimy is a social entrepreneur based in Bahrain. He is the cofounder of 3BL Associates, Bahrain’s first social impact consultancy and think-and-do-tank on sustainable and regenerative development of the Middle East and North African region. He is also co-founder of Al Tamasuk, an award winning social entrepreneurial approach to foster social cohesion and create employment opportunities amongst excluded communities through health education projects.

Tariq is a Biomimicry specialist (biomimicry intends to solve human problems using the brilliance of nature’s design) and a driving force for a more sustainable and regenerative Middle East.

Tariq is also a climate blogger, Adopt a Negotiator member, World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and was a founding national coordinator of the Arab Youth Climate Movement. In 2013, he contributed to an Arab World Position Policy Paper for COP19.

www.3blassociates.com

www.globalshapers.org/fr/shapers/tariq-al-olaimy

Natalie Jeremijenko, artist – United States, Australia

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Artist, engineer, eco-activist, Natalie Jeremijenko is one of the major players in innovation, between arts, technology and environment. Named one of the most influential women in the online journal Technology 2011 and one of the inaugural top young innovators by the MIT Technology Review, Natalie Jeremijenko directs the Environmental Health Clinic and is an associate professor in the NYU’s visual art department. She is also affiliated with the computer science department and environmental studies program. In 2010, Neuberger Museum produced a retrospective exhibition surveying recent work, entitled Connected Environments, in addition to a solo exhibition entitled X in November, 2010 at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Her installations lead us to re our ways of life: Tree Office, a coworking space up in the trees, or the Environmental Health Clinic are surprising works who invite us to see the environment in a new way. She’s also a Ted Speaker, and her last intervention got more than 400,000 views on the internet.

Natalie Jeremijenko is considered by Wired magazine as one of “the 4 most dynamic people on earth” and received the prize of most influential woman in technology in 2011 by Fast Company.

www.nataliejeremijenko.com

www.environmentalhealthclinic.net

TED : www.ted.com/speakers/natalie_jeremijenko

Sylvie Bénard, environment director for a French company.

Originally an agronomist, Sylvie Bénard has been leading the environmental department of a major French group since 1992, the year where she participated at the Earth Summit in Rio.

A major player in the environmental field in France, she was president of the association Oree from 2003 to 2010. Oree brings companies and local authorities together to develop a thought process on their environmental impacts and, in particular, on environmental management and its practical implementation on the landscape level. She was also president of Institut Inspire from 2009 to 2014. She was also vice president of the strategic committee of FRB (Foundation for research in biodiversity).

Filthy Luker, artists – United Kingdom

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas form an urban artist duo who create environmental intervention and site specific installations. Working internationally, their action started in an emblematic place of urban culture: Bristol. They use an unexpected material: giant inflatable structures, creating a spectacular effect that reminds us of comics. Through these playful and monumental installations, their “Art Attacks” transform cities into jungles, giant monsters or trees who watch us and strike us.

The artists have produced hundreds of inflatable sculptures and through their unique style and innovation have become internationally renowned for their work especially in the street-art movement, often using images of nature such as giant squids attacking cities, creating diversions around huge banana skins and bringing attention to trees with googly eyeballs. Theses invading shapes remind us the forces of nature, ready to return and conquer its rights back.

www.filthyluker.co.uk

Laurent Tixador, artist – France

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Laurent Tixador is a French artist who lives his art like a true expedition. Often put into survival situations, he confronts his self to hostile environments, from Greenland to Siberia. His adaptation is realized with interventions allying construction and self-sufficiency. Thanks to his nomadism and zero-impact approach, he is today an emblematic artist of ecological adaptation, from “slow” to “zero-waste”.

From his works are liberated precious teachings about the human capacity to face urgent situations and organize resilience. His performances are adventures, to put to the test mental and physical capacities: to stay indoors for twenty four hours with hundreds of mosquitoes, going from a city to another by foot to open his own works, going up rivers against water rapids and winds…

Laurent Tixador flirts with absurdity and burlesque, questioning our relation to reality and inviting us to react to the climate crises with our own personal resources: heads and hands.

www.laurenttixador.com

Slater Jewell-Kemker, film director – Canada

Member of Le Conclave 2014

Slater Jewell-Kemker is a 23 year old Canadian director who introduces her generation to the international youth climate movement. Born in Los Angeles to filmmaker parents, she has grown up with the idea that she could create her own media and change the world.

Slater has been making films since she was six years old, and has been recognized for her filmmaking and activism by the United Nations, Toronto International Film Festival, Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, My Hero Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival and others. She directed An Inconvenient Youth, a film whose main goal is to give young people fighting against climate change a voice, but also to shift the perspective on the climate crisis from one of fear and misunderstanding to one of the heart.

Slater and An Inconvenient Youth are currently working with Architecture for Humanity to develop a prototype of off-the-grid facilities for small communities most affected by climate change. These shelters, designed to collect fresh water and solar power, are more than shelter during times of emergency, they are year-round safe spaces designed to address each village’s cultural and communal needs.

www.aninconvenientyouth.com