Plus léger que l'air - Lighter than air

A graduate of the École du Louvre and a doctor of Paris IV Sorbonne, Laure Schwartz-Arenales began her career at the Musée national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet and the École du Louvre, where she taught East Asian art. Her research on Japanese ancient painting, conducted since 1998 in Japan (Tohoku University - Kyoto National Museum), was awarded the Kajima Foundation for the Arts in 2007. Professor at Ochanomizu University and then at Sophia University (Tokyo), she has been director of the Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Arts in Geneva since 2018. Born in Naha, Okinawa in 1949, Michiko Uehara became familiar with Okinawan textiles through the Japan Folk Art Museum (Tokyo) when she was in college. After entering the world of textiles under the tutelage of the renowned master weaver Yoshihiro Yanagi, she learned traditional Okinawan weaving techniques from Shizuko Ôshiro and established the "Mayu-ori" workshop in 1979. Using 3-denier silk threads, the finest thread a silkworm can produce, Uehara weaves incredibly light and airy textiles, baptized "Akezuba-ori," which, in Okinawa, means a dragonfly's wing. Explorer, psychiatrist and pioneer of clean technologies, Bertrand Piccard is the author of two first aeronautical round-the-world flights in a balloon and a solar plane. President of the Solar Impulse Foundation, this United Nations Environment Ambassador uses his fame to serve progress, sustainability and quality of life, three themes that are reflected in his concept of "qualitative economy".

• 6 Plus léger que l’air : le vol de la libellule7 Lighter than Air: The Flight of the DragonflyLaure Schwartz-Arenales26 Uehara Michiko: l’indicible27 Uehara Michiko: The UnutterableShukuko Voss-Tabe28 Voyages au gré du fil29 Journeys Following the ThreadUehara Michiko36 À tâtons, tisser jusqu’aux frontières du visible...Les défis de Uehara Michiko37 Groping, Weaving to the Frontiers of the Visible. . .The Challenges of Uehara MichikoMiyagawa Tomomi52 Fils et é toffes, l’extension de la vie53 Threads and Fabrics, Extensions of LifeMoroyama Masanori56 De Bologne à Okinawa : légèreté et transparence de la soie à la limite de la perception57 From Bologna to Okinawa: The Lightness and Transparency of Silk at the Edge of PerceptionSuzanne Lassalle66 Un avion telle une libellule dans le ciel67 A Plane Like a Dragonfly in the SkyBertrand Piccard126 Épilogue et remerciements127 Afterword and Acknowledgements