LOLA
SALEM

Lola Salem is a student at the École Normale Superieure in Paris. She has followed an interdisciplinary course of studies, with a first Masters degree in Musicology, and a second in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, enriched by a year spent at the University of Oxford. Alongside her academic research, she has involved herself in several extracurricular pursuits, including work on cultural and artistic policy, on the engagement of young people with the arts, and contemporary political and philosophical feminisms. Reflection on these issues has added a new direction to her academic work. She has increasingly combined these interests, focusing on the potential of art to convey the urgency of current ecological problems and the growing influence of women in ecological discourse.

PROJECT

Lola co-created the TREVE project, a survey regarding the constraints renewable energies are facing across Europe. The project is currently in its second phase: publishing and disseminating the results of its pan-European research tour, including an exhibition of photography and art, and the production of a documentary film.

Between November 2017 and February 2018, the City of Paris submitted to a public vote the ten propositions of the Paris Climate Action Plan which addressed issues ranging from renewable energies to citizen empowerment and social equity. Building on the existing literature and their field survey carried out during summer 2017; the TREVE committee aims to deliver a critical analysis of every proposition, breaking down each of their components, starting by assessing current policies led by the City of Paris, the validity and feasibility of each proposition, to highlight what needs to be achieved most urgently to mitigate the effects of climate change at the level of the French capital city.

MOTIVATION FOR AND COMMITMENT TO CREATING A BETTER AND MORE SUSTAINABLE PLANET. 

As a student in the Humanities (arts & philosophy), I thought for a long time that taking action into the field of sustainability wasn’t always where I could be the most useful. However, through my education at the École normale supérieure (Paris), I’ve understood that it was through common strength, cross-disciplinary debates and inter-generational links that it was possible to change our world for the better. My motivation originally comes from my investment in art and culture, and especially young creation and production, which is a field that can’t evolve without common work and without a clear vision of the future. This is where I discovered the power of cooperation between individuals, working together to ‘built’ something which would be greater than any of us. In front of climate change reality, I’m certain that this kind of strength that I discovered in art is also key here, and that building common acceptability toward this issue is one of the main way to raise public interest and change habits. After all, we’re not only dealing with nature but really with nature AND culture, has we need to change ourselves in order to create a better and more sustainable planet. Coming from research in the Humanities, I now want to take further action regarding climate change.