Marion Chartier & Charlotte Fauve

Botanist (Marion) & Journalist (Charlotte)

February - March 2023

Chartier&Fauve portrait
  • Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Cities
  • Miami
“As we explore Miami’s many gardens, we would like to make a herbarium of plants and texts recounting the relationship between people and nature through the countless faces of this changing metropolis.”
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With our shared passion for plants and commitment to the preservation of the environment, we have been working together for over 15 years on issues related to the climate crisis and the decline of biodiversity. In fact, we first met as undergraduates in an engineering school specializing in environmental issues. One of us (Charlotte) decided to devote herself to writing, adding to her expertise in the links between humanity and nature with a plethora of accounts, articles, and documentaries on the subject. The other (Marion) became a researcher, studying the evolution of flowering plants worldwide. Although our careers have taken different turns, we have continued to work together on joint projects combining journalism, literature and science.

 

We would therefore like to take up the challenge of telling the story of a metropolis at the mercy of rising waters–especially such an extravagant metropolis as Miami, the ‘Magic City’, where the sea level could rise three feet by 2060, turning its 2.8 million inhabitants into climate refugees. Working together as a writer-and-botanist duo, we would like to explore the gardens of that great city of Florida and make a herbarium of plants and texts to highlight these upheavals. Charlotte will then write a literary account based on Marion’s research and observations.

 

Charlotte Fauve is a journalist (Télérama, Le Monde, among others) and writer. She wrote the series Amazing Gardens for the French-German television channel Arte. Her first book, Botaniste (Éd. Grasset), which she co-wrote, tells the story of three centuries of botanical expeditions in 2019. It won the Redouté award for the best garden book in 2021, and has been translated into five languages. She is currently writing her second book.

Marion Chartier is a leading researcher in biology. In 2011, she obtained a PhD in plant-pollinator interactions from the University of Toulouse, and went on to study the evolution of flowering plants, in 2013, at the University of Vienna, Austria. In addition, she is soon to be qualified in jewelry design from the Academy of Jewelery Crafts and Technology in Vienna.

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In partnership with

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COAL

COAL, created in France in 2008 by professionals in contemporary art, ecology and research, mobilizes artists and cultural actors on societal and environmental issues and supports the essential role of creation and culture in raising awareness and implementing concrete solutions. Through the COAL Prize, international cooperation actions and more than fifty exhibitions and regional cultural projects, COAL is the first French player to promote the emergence of a new culture of ecology.

 

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