Stalker
Stalker Resilience Garden. Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, 2026
STALKER is a multidisciplinary research and creation project at the intersection of contemporary art, music, ecology, environmental humanities, and resilience studies. Inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's iconic film Stalker and by the realities of nuclear-contaminated territories, the project examines how landscapes affected by catastrophe can become spaces of regeneration, adaptation, and renewed forms of coexistence.
The project took shape through the world premiere of Thierry Pécou's opera Stalker, created in 2024 as part of the Normandie Impressionniste Festival, bringing together music, visual arts, scientific reflection, and ecological inquiry. Conceived by as a monumental immersive environment, the scenographic installation extended beyond the stage and became the exhibition La Zone, presented at the Musée d'Art, d'Archéologie et d'Histoire d'Évreux and within the Biennale d'Évreux. In this context, the "Zone" emerges as both a physical territory and a conceptual space where destruction, memory, resilience, and transformation coexist.
Drawing on research into nuclear disasters, particularly Chernobyl, STALKER investigates the relationships between damaged environments, collective memory, ecological restoration, and the capacity of living systems to adapt after traumatic events. The project creates a dialogue between artists, composers, scientists, ecologists, historians, and local communities, questioning how art can contribute to understanding and repairing the wounds of the world.
Extending beyond the opera and the exhibition, STALKER has evolved into a broader research platform that includes study days, doctoral seminars, and interdisciplinary collaborations organized with the Pantheon-Sorbonne University. These activities explore themes such as irradiated territories, representations of catastrophe, ecological restoration, and the role of artistic practices in processes of recovery and resilience.
A new chapter of the project is the development of STALKER Resilience Garden, commissioned by the International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire. Conceived as a living extension of the artistic and scientific research, the garden explores how ecological restoration, biodiversity, and care can become active responses to environmental and social crises.
The research continues to evolve through new large-scale artistic productions currently in development. Among them are Seeds of Change, a performative and participatory experience conceived in collaboration with the Institut Français for the 61st Venice Biennale, and Stalker 2029, an immersive installation exploring emerging relationships between ecological transformation, collective imaginaries, and technological futures. Together, these new projects extend the laboratory's ongoing investigation into the connections between science, art, embodiment, and societal change. The Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire GARDEN CREATED WITH SUPPORT FROM: ASCII, Institut Pasteur, ADEME, ANR. An art project inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, exploring nature’s resilience and transformation in landscapes affected by human activity. The project examines how plants, fungi and microorganisms adapt to radiation, pollution and contaminated environments, creating new conditions for life. An immersive musical and theatrical adaptation of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, inviting audiences to move freely among the performers while listening through high-fidelity headphones. The work explores the film’s science-fiction atmosphere, cinematic language and mystical dimensions. The Zone is a contemporary response to Tarkovsky’s Stalker. The project uses artificial intelligence and a new material made from milk to create works that explore the possibility of extinguishing violence and moving towards acceptance. A study day exploring how nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima shape collective and individual memory. The programme examines how art, literature, science and cultural practices make visible the lasting physical, ecological, psychological and social effects of radiation, and how new forms of storytelling can contribute to preserving and reconstructing memories of catastrophe. A study day exploring how contemporary art interprets, documents and reconfigures ecological, technological and social catastrophes. Through presentations and an interdisciplinary roundtable, artists and researchers examine memory, resilience, testimony and the role of art and science in shaping narratives of catastrophe. A study day examining how art and science respond to technological and ecological catastrophes, from Chernobyl and Hiroshima to Fukushima and contemporary crises. Inspired by Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the exhibition Rayogramme selon Stalker, the programme explores the Zone as a space of transformation, regeneration and new forms of coexistence between humans, non-humans and damaged environments. A study day exploring floral art as a space for dialogue between artistic creation, science and ecology. Artists and researchers examine plants as active participants and collaborators, and consider how artistic practices can contribute to ecological restoration, new forms of coexistence and a renewed relationship with the living world.Events
Stalker Resilience Garden at the International Garden Festival
Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire
Stalker Resilience Garden
Gardin
Opera Stalker
Filature Levavasseur
Opera Stalker
Ecausseville
Opera Stalker
Saint Ouen Abbey
The Zone
Museum of Art, History and Archaeology of Évreux
Récits des territoires et des corps irradiés
Sorbonne
L’interprétation de la catastrophe par l’art
Sorbonne
Rayogramme Selon Stalker : à l’approche des 40 ans de la tragédie de Tchernobyl
Sorbonne
Pratiques et représentations de l’art floral à l’ère de la restauration écologique : dialogues entre art, science et écologies végétales.
Sorbonne
