Invited for the Saisons Culturelles by the Cultural Department of the city of Chaumont, I spent 10 days painting in the streets of the city center to create a graphic itinerary. I painted a total of 55 small and discreet pieces. A booklet has been edited by the city so residents and visitors can go on a quest to find them. The booklets are available at the following venue : Hôtel de Ville (City Council), tourist office, médiathèque Les Silos, the museums and Le Signe Centre National du Graphisme.
“Le Pavillon”, the venue where my residency took place and where I showed the results of my experiments in the street, is situated on the tip of the Caen Peninsula. It’s a very interesting area because it is surrounded by water (the St. Pierre Bassin, the Caen à la Mer Canal, the Orne river and the Victor Hugo canal) and currently it’s in the middle of a huge urban transformation. Modern constructions, old factories, abandoned buildings, designed green areas and waste land are all mixed together. This makes it an open space, well defined and perfect for aleatory wandering.
For this exercise, I defined 23 points at key spots around the area (building angles, crossroads and corners). The goal was to walk from one point to another choosing at random the next point. The route started at point n.º1, had to go through 10 points and finished again at point n.º1. The result of each stroll generated a design that was then converted into a wood sculpture using a laser at the local Dôme Fablab. Finally, I painted and exhibited them at the Pavillon. I traced 11 routes myself and 6 were traced by the participants of a workshop with the Fablab. Each sculpture represents a 30 to 40 minutes stroll on a distance from 2 to 3 km.
Crossing the Orne river one day using the Orne-Boom (a boom built in 1908 that is used to regulate the tide) I realized that in font of each door, on the downstream side, the water was forming very powerful whirlpools. The next time I crossed the bridge I saw that the debris that had been floating the day before was still turning around in the same place. I understood that the whirlpools were so strong that any objects caught in them could barely escape. So, I decided to throw some art in one of the strongest whirlpools and see what would happen. After 5 days I decided to get them back and, after quite a lot of trouble, I managed to fish them all out of the water and bring them back to the exhibition space.
Generative and participative painting
La Grette Neighborhood
Besançon, France 04/2017
10 days and 180 participants – project organized by Juste Ici part of a CLEA (local contract of artistic education) with la Butte and la Grette schools.
Thanks to the whole Juste Ici team, to the volunteers, to the MJC Grette-Butte, to the 408 residents, to the teachers of la Butte and la Grette schools and all to the children who participated in the painting.
