CAC Brétigny

CAC Brétigny
Off-site season
2023—2024
Cycles of exhibitions and residencies

06.07.2024, 2-6pm
Espace de la Croix Louis, Brétigny-sur-Orge
Season closing event

In 2023—2024, CAC Brétigny, closed for renovation work, ran two cycles of off-site exhibitions and residencies. For this transitional season, the art centre transformed into a cultural vessel that accompanied the artists and guest curators in developing narratives anchored in the local area. As the spaceship prepares to go back into orbit until after the summer holidays, young and old alike are invited to come and celebrate the end of this first off-site season. Workshops, performance, screenings… a range of activities offering the chance to immerse yourself in the art centre’s programme!

All afternoon

“lunulae #4”
Exhibition visit

With Ethan Assouline, Célia Boulesteix, Collectif Grapain, Andréa Spartà, Sandar Tun Tun & Ife Day, Xolo Cuintle
Curator: Thomas Maestro

This final exhibition in the “lunulae” cycle is just on the surface of things, where we can make out the traces of buried secrets. We explore different zones (private, political, inhabited, deserted or haunted). Spaces with hazy borders, calling on us to reconsider our relationship with time.
 

“Roberlax's walk”
Early learning art workshop
Designed by Joséphine Topolanski

Joséphine Topolanski invites little ones on a journey to an unknown planet! Through storytelling and a sensory play mat designed and made by the artist, the children discover, explore and touch, at their own pace, the different textures, colours and landscapes that make up the story.

For children aged 6 to 36 months.

“Transmissions”
Sound installation

Sonia Saroya & Edouard Sufrin with Elen Huynh, co-created with EDI Repères in Brétigny-sur-Orge, a class of 5th graders from collège Roland Garros in Saint-Germain-lès-Arpajon, the final year of the visual arts option at lycée Albert Einstein in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois and teachers following the training program "Landscapes and artistic languages" offered by the DSDEN 91
Curator: Marie Plagnol

In 2023—2024, neighbours from the art centre's off-site exhibitions worked with artists Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin and sound director Elen Huynh to respond to the arrival of the art centre near them. Echoing the season's theme of science fiction, they recorded and edited sounds from the future using a range of devices allowing the capture of sounds from our environments. Each group also created its own transmission tool, by replacing the electronic components of an old radio. These devices ultimately form a collective installation broadcasting the sound material collected throughout the project.

A dimension unlike any other
Screening

Laura Burucoa and Aliette Salama, co-created with pupils from the Roger Vivier elementary school in Marolles-en-Hurepoix

Laura Burucoa and Aliette Salama explored the territory of dreams with the students of the Roger Vivier elementary school in Marolles-en-Hurepoix. The artists, familiar with both the CAC Brétigny and the Roger Vivier school, conducted a series of workshops with the classes. With the students, they created a video from scratch, from the collective writing of the script to the shooting and post-production. The children each contributed to the creation of a collective dreamlike story: from the stories of their dreams, they wrote, directed and stared in stories set in fantastic sceneries. The green screen technique, with which the students had fun, allowed them to embed their silhouettes in their drawings, or even to transform objects. The contributions from each class were then gathered in a film, taking viewers on a trip alongside A dimension unlike any other!

Abri de Pensée (La Cabane)
Launch

Ethan Assouline, co-created with the young people and staff at EDI Repères in Brétigny-sur-Orge
Curator: Thomas Maestro

After eight months of writing workshops,  drawings, discussions, collages and designing layouts, the fanzine Abri de Pensée (La Cabane) is finally here! It brings together nearly 50 pages filled with snippets of daily life, dreams, ideas for now and the future, attempts to say “who we are” and “why”’, thoughts on how to talk about our fears, desires, our bedroom, solitude or the collective and how to answer questions like “what is autonomy?” and “sometimes all it takes is…?”. The makers of Abri de Pensée (La Cabane)—a varying group meeting at the youth support centre Repères—are proud to present to you this free fanzine they created in order to “bring together ideas and spend time together.”
 

4pm
Performed reading of Le jukebox des Trobairitz

Helena de Laurens, Clara Pacotte and Esmé Planchon
Curator: Valentina Ulisse

Performed reading, in the form of a jukebox, of the book Le jukebox des Trobairitz. From Alexandrine to Zizanie, 101 mythological, topographical and poetic definitions, invented by Helena de Laurens, Clara Pacotte and Esmé Planchon and inspired by Monique Wittig & Sande Zeig’s Lesbian peoples: material for a dictionary, published in French in 1976.
 

3-6pm
“The meetings of l'Ǝcole”
Collective artistic workshop

Clara Denidet
Curators: The CAC Brétigny team

Continuing the collective creation sessions organised throughout the season with l’Ǝcole, the artist Clara Denidet extends an invitation to anyone who wants to get together and mend one of their textile belongings. Different mending techniques will be shared through discussions and drawings. Participants will be asked to entrust their item to another member of the group and make sure their repair is visible. By inviting participants to appropriate a process of working that sets both their hands and tongues in motion, the artist offers an opportunity to create a zone for discussion, exchange and care.   

Register to participate via reservation@cacbretigny.com or at the exhibition reception desk on 6^th July. Remember to bring a textile item to mend.




Ethan Assouline (born 1994) lives and works in the Paris region. Through sculpture, installation, writing, publishing, drawing and the organisation of collective events around reading and writing, he tries and takes a critical look at the modern city and its language in his architectural, economic and political dimensions. His work was presented at the art and research centre Macao in Milan in 2019,  at Crédac in Ivry-sur-Seine in 2022 and at Le Grand Café in Saint-Nazaire in 2023. He is a member of Treize, a non-profit organisation for production, exhibitions, and editions.

Laura Burucoa has focused on practices that take shape around the transmission of knowledge and the ways of creating history through video, performance, writing, and the design of collective situations. She became especially interested in the issues and modes of communicating, telling stories, and working together after a number of experiences as an activity leader for children at holiday camps and an official guide (at the Rencontres d'Arles in the summer of 2015 and MAC VAL since 2019). Imagining the work of art in its habitat and working on the contexts of production, circulation, and public outreach are significant elements in each of her projects. She has also taken part in several group shows as an artist or curator (CRAC Alsace, Syndicat Potentiel, Hangar 9, Casino Luxembourg, etc.). 

Clara Denidet (born 1991) is an artist and author. She lives and works in Bourgogne. Her research spans the visual arts, from sculpture to installation as well as the performative form and writing. Her work draws on the social sciences, big and small histories, within a deliberately amateur and experimental anthropological approach. In 2023 and 2024, she is artiste-in-residence at Le Bel Ordinaire (Pau), Maison Salvan (Labège) and the voyons voir art contemporain et territoire (Provence-Alpes-Côtes d'Azur) as part of the “Chemin des affinités” programme.

Clara Pacotte is an author, filmmaker and editor. Esmé Planchon is a children’s author, storyteller and actress. Helena de Laurens is a dancer, actress and choreographer. They have been working together since 2011.

Aliette Salama has developed her artistic practice through drawing, painting on ceramics, as well as organizing spaces for listening, sharing and creating around the theme of dreams. Adventure tales, strange situations or inexplicable phenomena are, in her eyes, a magnificent material from which to spur creation. She has been organizing “Les Lectures des Rêves Secrets” (The Readings of Secret Dreams) since 2017 and in 2019, she initiated a residency project called “La Nuit du Rêve” (The Night of Dream) where she brings together artists and musicians to create a night long radio program on this theme. 

Sonia Saroya and Edouard Sufrin have been working together as a duo since 2014. After studying Media Design and Contemporary Art at l’Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, they have developed a fragile and discreet universe that attempts to place underground, industrial and natural environments in dialogue with questions from the social sciences, philosophy and low-tech technologies. Their installation works occupy a space between sculpture and digital and sound art. It has been presented in art centres and cultural spaces such as Le CNEAI, La Station - Gare des mines and the MAIF Social Club.

Joséphine Topolanski (born 1998) lives and works in the Paris region. After studying printed image at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs de Paris, from which she graduated in 2021, she turned her attention to weaving and textiles. Her work questions the boundary between fiction and reality by focusing on belief systems and their relationship to truth. She was awarded an honourable mention from the jury of the Révélation Design ADAGP prize in 2021. The following year, her work was presented at 100% L’Expo at the Grande Halle de La Villette and was added to the Pantin city collection.