TakingPlace

Performance dont le médiateur est un télescope.
Entre deux échelles de grandeurs opposées se joue la problématique des extrêmes. Ce vide entre deux manières de créer une image -le loin et le magnifié- est un effort de ré-imagination de la narration : ce vide est la marge de manœuvre et la possibilité pour une nouvelle allégorie d’apparaitre. En compliquant l'interprétation, Avoir Lieu joue une métaphore pour un progrès non-linéaire.

Taking Place/ Avoir Lieu

What happens to culture as its observed ?

Les Arts Ephemeres is a collective exhibition that takes place outdoors in a pristine, classical park where the Mayor's offices of the 9th/10th districts of Marseille sits. As I walked around the park and recognized species of plants and trees that were brought there around the turn of the 20th century, the confusion of 'culture' became apparent to me as I considered the act of enclosing displaced plants in a man-made, 'natural' space as well as the upcoming contemporary art exhibition. Parks are strange places. I like to picnic in them, but they're still obviously (colonial?) attempts at utopia.

How do we access culture ? How do we seize not only the meaning, but the very stuff of what 'culture' is made of? With the intentions of confronting that question, I constructed a 10 meter long pair of workers pants that hung on a line between some trees of the park as if put out to dry. These pants literally 'magnify' an aspect of quotidien life in La Provence.

In line with the same question, I organized and choreographed a performance (of which I didn't participate) on a mountain that was visible from the park, yet not part of the park. (Where does culture end/begin?) I placed a telescope within the middle of the park and through the magnifying scope, viewers could see tiny versions of people who were climbing the mountain wearing scout-inspired uniforms and white gloves while holding potted plants. The spectators couldn't see these details. At the top of the mountain, the 'scout' performers participated in their scouting: exploring, discovering, telling stories and learning. Learning a dance in particular, as the sun set.