An agricultural engineer with a Ph.D. in social sciences, actively engaged for the past 20 years in work for and with living organisms in connection with development dynamics and the challenges of poverty alleviation, and a visual artist in my spare time… my totem is the winged panther.

Different ways of approaching the world, of observing its riches and its flaws. Several paths led me to propose the creation of the Metis Arts and Development Fund —an innovative initiative supported and incubated since 2019 by the French Development Agency.

With Metis’s support, in the most vulnerable countries—a hospital, a city hall, a business, an environmental NGO, a network of schools… all can engage an artist. Together, they build a space for dialogue, connection, and creation tied to a development issue that concerns them and their audience—the community in which they live and work.

The goal? For the creative process itself and the final work to become catalysts for individual and collective emotional transformation. This is an approach that remains relatively uncommon in development efforts, yet one that is so powerful for building our current world—and the world of tomorrow—in a just manner.

Metis is growing. Thanks to numerous sources of inspiration, thanks to everyone’s commitment—both in the regions directly involved and, more broadly, through the support of those who champion the mobilizing power of the senses. I welcome collaboration with any development practitioner, artist, or citizen eager to share in the power of the convergence between the arts and development.