Presentation of the "Rouvrir le Monde" (Reopening the World) programme, Ministry of Culture, DRAC PACA
What is the Été culturel (Cultural Summer)? Launched in 2020, the Été culturel is a national operation of the Ministry of Culture that supports artistic and cultural projects taking place in July and August, first launched as lockdown came to an end.
The operation is mainly run by the Ministry of Culture’s regional departments, which support projects initiated in their territory by associations, public institutions and local authorities.
The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur rolls out the Été culturel as "Rouvrir le Monde" artist residencies, in order to connect culture and leisure for all children, young people and adults over the summer, and to offer local residents participatory artistic and cultural projects led by artists in their area.
The “Rouvrir le Monde, un été culturel apprenant” (Reopening the World, a Summer of Learning) #RLM residencies thus aim to amplify "Creation & Transmission" initiatives with children, young people and adults, through two-week residencies in host organisations.
3 ARTISTS • 3 PROJECTS • 3 VENUES
Tatjana SONJOV — from 15 to 26 July
at the Les Bengalis kindergarten, Grasse
"The tables, or how to paint everyday life" workshop
The Rouvrir le Monde residency at Les Bengalis enabled the artist Tatjana Sonjov to run workshops over two weeks with 65 children divided into eight groups.
After a session presenting her work and talking it through with the children, the first hands-on workshop involved making paintings with end-of-sale fruit and vegetables, sauces and spices, collected from local producers, from parents and after lunch in the canteen, in an ethical and responsible approach. The next three workshops focused on passing on a way of looking, an attention to the shapes of objects on the table, and pictorial gestures around shared meals: direct prints, outlining, negative and positive traces, layering of different traces and papers, materiality, mixing and varying colours while composing one’s work on a space that was sometimes shared and sometimes individual. The transmission also extended to the four educators and eight assistants, for whom the artist produced workshop sheets so they could reuse them, as well as to the cleaning and canteen staff, whose commitment allowed the project to grow.
The residency took place in ideal conditions thanks to the open-mindedness, responsiveness and enthusiasm of the director, Virginie Basile, who allowed Tatjana Sonjov, in addition to the morning and afternoon workshops, to offer the children introductions to watercolour at lunchtime and a session of foot-trodden painting with fruit gathered from a neighbouring orchard. Parents were invited to join in, and around fifteen came to see the children’s creations.
As for her own practice, the residency allowed the artist to develop her series Mes Tables (My Tables) and to create a work in the canteen painted with leftovers from the menus, a witness to the meals shared with the children. She also began a new series of prints of the children’s Lego, Les Constructions (Constructions), and sewed some sixty aprons intended to be presented as a work. The whole residency was guided by a feeling that the artist wished to share: if there can be beauty in a stained tablecloth, the imprint left by everyday life shared around a table, then all the poetry of the infra-ordinary opens up here, a world before our eyes that asks only to be looked at.
Number of people reached by the project: 65 children in 8 groups.
Discover Tatjana Sonjov’s work at
https://tatjanasonjov.com
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Isabelle SORDAGE — from 15 to 26 July
at the SIVOM de la Tinée, Clans
Sound workshop "Around Anémone"
Halfway between artwork and educational tool, the Anémone kit designed by the artist Isabelle Sordage offers a range of experiments specific to sound work in the visual arts. Playful and accessible to all, the Anémone kit holds a multitude of workshops. Its various configurations make it possible to explore different facets of sound experimentation and sensitive listening: placing sound in space, creating sound sculptures, playing between the visual and the aural. “Drawing sound”, “touching sound” and “seeing sound” become simple, natural activities. Some modules of the kit also offer more technical manipulations, such as electromechanical constructions. Through these varied explorations, the subtleties of visual space and of the artwork are gradually addressed. This modular kit offers a holistic experience in which art, sound, technique and creativity meet to stimulate imagination and learning.
During the "Around Anémone" workshop, based on this kit, it was possible to work with groups of children of very different ages, from three to eleven. The artist devised workshops for listening and for building sound modules. The children explored all the sound equipment to amplify their creations. A drawing exercise aimed at raising awareness of the many forms of sound visualisation also gave rise to a series of drawings.
After designing their object, the children presented their project to the other children, paying attention to vocabulary and to the sensory result. For 15 days, the project had the children working around listening, experimental sound creation and sound in its visual dimension. All the children used the Anémone kit and its experimental sound devices. The kit allowed them to hear new things, to visualise sounds using a projection system, to draw sounds, and to play with invented cards to create sound modules combined with amplification games.
Following on from these sound objects and listening drawings, an exhibition is on show all summer at the Villa les Vallières: “Around Anémone”.
Beyond the shared awareness-raising sessions and workshops, the residency led Isabelle Sordage to imagine a series of experimental modules dedicated exclusively to the sound experience: a sort of alphabet, in the “soundflowers” series, each offering a singular set of experiences. The first is Anémone, with its specific modules.
As an offshoot of this project, Isabelle Sordage will ask artists to propose experiences specific to their work, and to leave a trace in future kits. For Anémone, the first contribution will be by the artist Dylan Sheridan, resident at the Villa les Vallières.
Number of people reached by the project: around 70.
8 adults in charge of the centres involved: Clans, Roussillon, St Sauveur and Valdeblore
(between 10 and 20 children per centre)
10 children from the Artsgonautes course, plus parents and supervisors, visited the exhibition produced at the end of the sessions. The exhibition was on view all summer in Clans, at the Villa les Vallières.
Discover the artist’s work at
http://isabelle-sordage.fr
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Sandrine ARAKELIAN — from 15 to 26 July
at the Ehpad la Vençoise care home, Vence
"Gestures and Volumes" workshop
The artist Sandrine Arakelian wanted to undertake this residency to convey the legitimacy and meaning that visual creation brings to human beings. She combined her artistic production with an existential dimension in which care has its place.
During the workshop she shared various artistic gestures, in particular the one she is currently working on: making volumes bound with wool from used fabrics.
Passing on her gestures:
1) - Making bound volumes from used, soft fabrics: collecting all kinds of clothes, sheets, towels... to create organic, hybrid volumes close to nature and the body. The volumes are first bound with jute string to give them shape, then with wool. The form is not defined in advance, but revolves around the human body. It may be an outer or inner part of the body, or the whole body. Once installed, this work highlights a mass of coloured, tangled lines, or a single line released and unwound. The fabrics were gathered by the care home and were used both for the workshop with the residents and for the artist’s own practice.
2) - Observing living things: using a few stems from a bouquet of sunflowers, the artist invited the residents to depict what they saw by making a few sketches in pencil, a pared-down work that goes to the essentials, without decoration. Then, in cobalt blue ink and black Indian ink, the work continued with these two colours imposed as a constraint. Work on the background brings the flowers forward while keeping a minimalist look. Working the background with water, watercolour washes or stains introduces an element of chance; a dry finish plays with the marks of the tool...
3) - Imprint of one’s body: one or more parts of my body. The hand, the forearm.
After placing their forearm and hand on a sheet of paper, the residents trace the outline in pencil or charcoal. To question the composition, the sheet is turned several times and the residents redraw the same outline each time. Should the shapes be intertwined or overlapped, or not? Finally, the residents were invited to work with soft pastels applied with their fingers.
4) - Hand-sewn photography. Using photos selected beforehand, the residents were invited to act on them with the gesture of hand sewing – a gesture that offers all kinds of possibilities. The thread can wind around the photograph until it completely hides the image, creating another image. The gesture can be prolific or minimalist. There is no plan in advance. One must act, or rather react, with the image, be in “interaction” with it, with imagination, dreams and every possibility the thread can lead us to, everything that may come about.
The diversity of artistic practices Sandrine Arakelian brought into play was adapted to the inner needs of the care home’s residents.
Small groups of 5 to 10 people, women and men aged between 72 and 98
Discover the artist’s work at
https://www.facebook.com/sandrine.arakelian/?locale=fr_FR
Été culturel 2024 – DRAC PACA
The Été culturel is an initiative of the Ministry of Culture, implemented by the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and national operators
#étéculturel2024 - #Rouvrirlemonde - #DRACPACA - #culture_gouv