Adrien Missika’s work often evokes reenchantment, employing metaphoric encounters between nature and culture to
challenge established cultural patterns. One such instance is
La Pensée Sauvage, a photograph taken during the development of the Weed Care action. The image of the flower bursting
through the pavement supported by a hand in solidarity, stands
as a singular piece. In French, the Wild Pansy is known as “La
Pensée Sauvage,” [The Wild Thinking] a feminine noun. This title echoes Claude Lévi-Strauss’s seminal work, where he urges
us to question the dominance of science in modern knowledge
systems.

Lévi-Strauss argues that alongside rationality, magical thinking
has shaped human cultures, offering complementary modes of
understanding the world; it is through analogies and metaphors
that rationality and wonder converge. While rational thought
encounters its limits in grasping the full scope of reality, magical thinking illuminates new paths of possibility, inviting perspectives anew. Missika’s oeuvre thrives in this liminal space,
where conventional reality intersects with alternative forms of
non-human knowledge.