BookReview: Re-thinking the Human–Nature Divide. Patrick Lacan and Marion Besançon. Verts. Rue de Sèvres, 2024. ISBN: 9782810206070

Verts, written by Patrick Lacan and illustrated by Marion Besançon, presents itself as a graphic narrative that moves beyond environmental allegory to explore deeper questions of identity, alterity, and collective transformation. The original French edition was published in May 2024, and one of the first translations appeared in Italian (by tenué, November 2025) [1].
At the center of the story lies an unsettling yet poetic event: some babies begin to undergo a vegetal metamorphosis. These “mutations” then begin to manifest themselves in adults as well: leaves, branches, and shoots sprout from their skin, blurring the boundaries between human and non-human. What initially appears as an anomaly gradually becomes a social phenomenon, forcing the community to confront fear, fascination, and rejection. 

Metamorphosis as a social device

More than a simple fantasy element, metamorphosis functions as a lens through which to examine society and culture. The bodily transformations challenge established norms and reveal the fragility of concepts such as “normality”, “health”, and “belonging.” In this way, Verts engages with broader social dynamics, showing how societies respond to difference and how fear often arises when familiar boundaries are questioned. Some characters embrace these transformations, experiencing the resulting “contamination” with a renewed sense of openness and serenity. Others, however, resist it, sometimes with aggression or violence. These moments evoke a sense of alarm, hostility, and the circulation of misinformation, echoing social anxieties .
The central idea is the confrontation with difference and the fear it can provoke. The vegetal body becomes a figure of otherness — not hostile, but radically unfamiliar. The narrative thus mirrors real processes of stigmatization and exclusion, while simultaneously questioning the legitimacy of those reactions. Actually Patrick Lacan explained that Verts speaks directly to the theme of acceptance of the other, the fear of the other, and the challenges of change, especially in a society that can be violent toward those who deviate from the norm [2].

Although ecological themes are central, Verts avoids overt didacticism. Nature is not presented as an external entity to be protected, but as something that re-enters the human body, dissolving the classic opposition between culture and nature. This perspective aligns with contemporary debates in social theory and anthropology that challenge anthropocentric worldviews and emphasize interdependence among living beings. The metamorphosis is therefore not simply an ecological warning; it is a proposal for a different ontology, one in which identity is fluid and relational rather than fixed and hierarchical.
Besançon’s artwork plays a crucial role in conveying these ideas. The drawings focus on bodies, landscapes, and silences, which become more pronounced as the influence of “Nature” intensifies. Through this visual language, the reader is invited to accept the transformation and experience it as a gradual, intimate, and ultimately regenerative process. This aesthetic choice reinforces the book’s conceptual framework: understanding change not through spectacle, but through affect and perception. The reader is not guided toward a single interpretation but encouraged to inhabit uncertainty.

The reflections developed in Verts find a parallel in the world of cinema. In the same year of the graphic novel, the animated film Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis (2024), attracted widespread audience attention and critical acclaim. Flow depicts a world reshaped by a catastrophic flood, where human presence is notably absent. The story follows a group of animals navigating a submerged landscape, relying on cooperation rather than domination. Like Verts, the film avoids explanatory discourse and instead privileges experience, perception, and movement. Meaning emerges through images, rhythms, and interactions rather than through verbal articulation.
What links these two works most clearly is their treatment of nature not as a background or adversary, but as an active condition of existence. In Verts, nature enters the human body, transforming it from within. In Flow, nature restructures the environment entirely, rendering previous forms of control obsolete. In both cases, adaptation replaces mastery, and vulnerability becomes a shared condition rather than an individual failure.
Both works suggest that contemporary ecological crises cannot be fully understood through dominant rational or discursive frameworks alone; they require alternative narrative forms capable of conveying affect, interdependence, and fragility. Seen together, Verts and Flow can be read as complementary cultural products that explore how societies could  imagine life after the destabilization of anthropocentric order. They do not offer solutions, but they open a space for rethinking coexistence beyond separation between human and non-human, culture and nature, self and environment. 

In this sense, both works contribute to a broader shift in contemporary visual culture: a move toward narratives that do not explain the world, but ask us to dwell within its transformations.

Lacan, Patrick, and Marion Besançon. Verts. Rue de Sèvres, 2024. ISBN: 9782810206070

[1] https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/nel-sottobosco-umano-nuove-reti-sociali-trasformative-AIbfSJi

[2] https://tg24.sky.it/lifestyle/2025/11/20/patrick-lacan-marion-besancon-metamorfosi-verde 

[3] Other pages could be seen in: https://marionbesancon.myportfolio.com/vert

 

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