The Conference of the Palm Trees (La Conférence des Palmiers) is an ongoing series initiated by Mehdi-Georges Lahlou in 2021. It brings together sculptures, photographs, videos, video installations, and sound works, forming a polyphonic ensemble in which multiple groups of works respond to one another. The artist borrows the title from Farid al-Din Attar’s Conference of the Birds; in his work, however, it is no longer birds that carry the narratives, but palm trees, displaced into a metaphorical role connected to human histories.
Through these works, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou addresses questions of migration, climate change, environmental policies, transformed soils, and colonial agriculture. Palm trees, the central figures of the series, become witnesses to displacement, forced or orchestrated circulation, and interventions that have shaped both landscapes and societies.
The various forms brought together in La Conférence des Palmiers intertwine memory, politics, and ecology. They articulate narratives in which the trajectories of plant life intersect with those of bodies and territories, revealing continuities between colonial practices, environmental transformations, and contemporary conditions.
