Within the Umwelt
Loïc Bonche

The multiplicity of perceptual worlds specific to each species plays a key role in the relationship between the fisherman and their environment. The notion of Umwelt, developed by Jakob von Uexküll, is brought into play through the object of the lure. At the intersection of animal and human worlds, this object is shaped through situated gestures that combine practical knowledge with close observation of living beings.

Immersed along the edges of rivers and streams, the practice of fishing explores, through acts of creation, a sensitive connection to life. As a tool of predation, the lure is placed under tension: although the fisherman relies on deception and cunning, they track, make, and use lures, thereby developing an understanding of the living environments around them. This object reveals the passage from one world to another. It acts both as an interface and as an aesthetic operator, opening onto situated narratives.

“What the lure implies […] is an extreme fluidity of logics and bodies in interaction: reversibility of perspectives, the ability to disguise one’s body, to conceal it or to extend it through some artifact. […] Hunters, fishermen, artisans, or shamans thus find themselves in a kind of ontological instability, at the junction of worlds whose distinctions they must learn and imitate in order to manipulate them effectively.” Loïc Bonche, mai 2026