Vocales

04.02—23.04.17

U+1F5EA-000
Two Speech Bubbles
⊂ l'année prochaine, je m'attaque à la traversée de l'Atlantique! ⊃ ⊂ tu plaisantes? ⊃

Photostory
w.n.

Black offset printing, 6,1 × 4,3 cm
Brétigny Notre Ville, №41, p. 22

15.09.81

An exhibition by
Céline Poulin
Marie Preston
Stéphanie Airaud

With
Esther Ferrer
Núria Güell
Adelita Husni-Bey
Leigh Ledare
Devora Neumark
Christian Nyampeta
Marie Preston
Sébastien Rémy
Till Roeskens
Cyril Verde

To create together, initially you have to accept indetermination and welcome antagonism, then grope around in the dark, let discussions happen, and work the adjustments. These starting points and creative processes, regardless of their outcomes, seem to favor the making of connections and the creativity of everyone.

Yes (I’m breaking in, sorry), ever since we’ve been talking about this (does anyone ever have enough time for conversation?), in your opinion, at what moment does a multiplicity of voices arise? The “I” that fuses with the Us? And is there an “Us”?

And then? What is the future of these words we’ve exchanged? Art? Empowerment? Social initiatives? And the objects and words that emerge from that? Their reception?

In my opinion, what’s important is that voice is “radically social as much as it is individual, [it] indicates the way human beings place themselves in the world and with respect to others.” (Paul Zumthor)

Which is why spoken remarks will be included in the exhibition. You don’t dissociate different modalities of speech (day-to-day, academic, poetic, emerging from the artworks, processes, theoretical research, etc.); and a specific arrangement for welcoming interactions can even be imagined. Words and their transience are on view.The exhibits are words and their evanescence, but also what they produce, or at least part of it. The different talks seem to echo the works and documents that have sprung up.

Let’s take an excerpt of a scientific paper written in preparation for the two days of research: “We endeavor… to imagine the way each individual, in coming into contact with the Other, sees the many voices living in him. Cooperative artmaking brings out that state in which each person tries to skillfully juggle with that inner multitude.”

Inner but also outer multitude, I think. Orality involves a back-and forth between the collective and the individual. Every word or utterance is charged with a memory that gets amplified and modified during the exchanges. There is a moment-by-moment actualization of the individual and collective selves. And this importance of the here-and-now becomes intertwined with the past and the future. The memory is also that of the different meanings and contexts assigned to every word pronounced by another.

How about translation then? From one subjectivity to another, one imagination to another, one language to another... Do you think it can be done?

Yes. But only if translation takes into account the presence of the Other in us and in our languages.

Isn’t translation then just another name for those artistic endeavors built around the experience of alterity?

Hmm... you think so?

Céline Poulin, Marie Preston et Stéphanie Airaud.

"Vocales", a project in partnership with MAC VAL Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, the research team Teamed (AIAC), and the University of Paris 8 Vincennes—Saint-Denis, the Villa Vassilieff, the research platform "Pratiques d’Hospitalité", initiated and coordinated by Simone Frangi and Katia Schneller at ÉSAD •Grenoble, the University of Quebec in Montreal, La Galerie, the contemporary art center of Noisy-le-Sec, and the Théâtre Brétigny, a government-funded stage and with the support of Fluxus Art Projects and of Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques.

Documents

Vocales — Press file (pdf)
Vocales — Press release (pdf)

Agenda

Saturday 21 January 2017, 10 am-5.30 pm

Research day. Orality: The Spoken. Modalities and practices of collective art-making (1/2)

MAC VAL, Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne

Numerous practices involving joint works or cooperation between artists grant special importance to speech, the exchange of words. Taking that realization as its starting point, the two-day seminar will tackle the empowerment at work in speaking and voicing opinions, the involvement of processes of deconstruction and subjectivization in the production of multiple voices, and the importance of translation in this polyphonic perspective.
22.01—03.02.17

Presence revisited, Devora Neumark

Performance

“Over a period of eight weeks beginning in September of 1997, I sat on a three-legged wooden bench in various places around the city of Montreal crocheting non-stop. For five hours a day, I crocheted using two colours: fine yellow cotton thread marked the stitches I made in solitude, while purple traced my exchanges with the passersby who stopped to speak with me.” Twenty years later, Devora Neumark recreates “Présence” and adapts it to the specificities of the public spaces of Vitry-sur-Seine and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
With the support of Au Ver à Soie.
Saturday 4 February 2017, 10 am-5.30 pm

Research day. Orality: The Spoken. Modalities and practices of collective art-making (2/2)

Numerous practices involving joint works or cooperation between artists grant special importance to speech, the exchange of words. Taking that realization as its starting point, the two-day seminar will tackle the empowerment at work in speaking and voicing opinions, the involvement of processes of deconstruction and subjectivization in the production of multiple voices, and the importance of translation in this polyphonic perspective.
Every Wednesday, 2.30 pm

Storytelling workshop

Children's activity

Developed for the current exhibition, this weekly children’s activity will focus on fairy tales. Selected every week by the librarians of the Médiathèque of Brétigny-sur-Orge, these stories will be at the heart of moments of listening and dialogue during which the audience will be invited to create a fairy-tale in turn. In partnership with the Multimedia Library of Brétigny-sur-Orge.

For any reservation or information: reservation@cacbretigny.com or + 33(0)1 60 85 20 78.
Friday 10 February 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #1)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Friday 17 February 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #2)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 18 February 2017, 3 pm

Tant que je vous parle ce n'est pas une frontière

Meeting with Sébastien Rémy (1/6)

"I press my face against a Plexiglas panel on which the reflection of a page is overwritten with printed texts and images. page 12. I gradually decipher the text, 'I would like to speak ever so softly so that you would have to come up close to me, and I would speak in a tongue that would sound foreign to you, or maybe I would just speak in images and you would have nothing to decipher, because I would be there and that would be enough.' After a few minutes of silence and hesitation, as we sit in the vicinity of one another, we strike up a conversation."
Saturday 18 February 2017, 4 pm

Storytelling Saturday

Family activity

Told in many voices by the librarians and invited storytellers, the stories selected for these two events are addressed to both adult and children’s audiences. In partnership with the Multimedia Library of Brétigny-sur-Orge.

Additional information and reservation: reservation@cacbretigny.com or + 33(0)1 60 85 20 78.
Friday 24 February 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #3)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Friday 3 March 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #4)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 4 March 2017, 3 pm

Tant que je vous parle ce n'est pas une frontière

Meeting with Sébastien Rémy (2/6)

"I press my face against a Plexiglas panel on which the reflection of a page is overwritten with printed texts and images. page 12. I gradually decipher the text, 'I would like to speak ever so softly so that you would have to come up close to me, and I would speak in a tongue that would sound foreign to you, or maybe I would just speak in images and you would have nothing to decipher, because I would be there and that would be enough.' After a few minutes of silence and hesitation, as we sit in the vicinity of one another, we strike up a conversation."
Friday 10 March 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #5)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Friday 17 March 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #6)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 18 March 2017, 3 pm

Tant que je vous parle ce n'est pas une frontière

Meeting with Sébastien Rémy (3/6)

"I press my face against a Plexiglas panel on which the reflection of a page is overwritten with printed texts and images. page 12. I gradually decipher the text, 'I would like to speak ever so softly so that you would have to come up close to me, and I would speak in a tongue that would sound foreign to you, or maybe I would just speak in images and you would have nothing to decipher, because I would be there and that would be enough.' After a few minutes of silence and hesitation, as we sit in the vicinity of one another, we strike up a conversation."
Friday 31 March 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #8)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 1 April, 3 pm

Tant que je vous parle ce n'est pas une frontière

Meeting with Sébastien Rémy (4/6)

"I press my face against a Plexiglas panel on which the reflection of a page is overwritten with printed texts and images. page 12. I gradually decipher the text, 'I would like to speak ever so softly so that you would have to come up close to me, and I would speak in a tongue that would sound foreign to you, or maybe I would just speak in images and you would have nothing to decipher, because I would be there and that would be enough.' After a few minutes of silence and hesitation, as we sit in the vicinity of one another, we strike up a conversation."
Friday 7 April 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #9)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Friday 14 April 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #10)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 15 April 2017, 4 pm

Storytelling Saturday

Family activity

Told in many voices by the librarians and invited storytellers, the stories selected for these
two events are addressed to both adult and children’s audiences. In partnership with the Multimedia Library of Brétigny-sur-Orge.

Additional information and reservation: reservation@cacbretigny.com or + 33(0)1 60 85 20 78.
Friday 21 April 2017, 6 pm

Radius Working Group, Christian Nyampeta (Session #11)

Radio broadcast

Friday evenings the Radius Working Group presents a radio broadcast on cacbretigny.com with news, stories and songs from Lagos, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kigali, London, New York, and Brétigny-sur-Orge.
Saturday 22 April 2017, 3 pm

"Tant que je vous parle ce n'est pas une frontière"

Meeting with Sébastien Rémy (5/6)

"I press my face against a Plexiglas panel on which the reflection of a page is overwritten with printed texts and images. page 12. I gradually decipher the text, 'I would like to speak ever so softly so that you would have to come up close to me, and I would speak in a tongue that would sound foreign to you, or maybe I would just speak in images and you would have nothing to decipher, because I would be there and that would be enough.' After a few minutes of silence and hesitation, as we sit in the vicinity of one another, we strike up a conversation."
By appointment

Q&A with Marie Preston

Since 2015, Marie Preston has been researching the history and function of local specialized preschool assistants (or ATSEM—agent territorial spécialisé des écoles maternelles). Vis-à-vis the community where CAC Brétigny is located and with the aim of initiating a local artistic experience, Preston invites anyone interested in pedagogy (pre-school and primary school levels) to reflect on the interdependence of the different actors accompanying the pupils and on the possible ensuing forms of cooperation.
Sunday 23 April 2017, 3 pm

Special opening

Meeting and guided tour of "Vocales"

For the final Sunday of the show’s run, CAC Brétigny, breaking with its normal schedule, will be open for a final encounter with Sébastien Rémy (6/6) and a guided tour of the show with the director, Céline Poulin.