CAC Brétigny

The C.C.C. (Club Colombophile du Cœur) feature initiatives carried out locally by Eric Giraudet de Boudemange with the kindergarten Eugénie Cotton of Brétigny-sur-Orge, the Collège Paul Éluard of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, the Accueil de loisirs of Ollainville, the AAPISE (Support Association for Participation, Social and Environmental Inclusion) of Arpajon, the Foyer du Pont de Pierre of Brétigny-sur-Orge, the APES ( Prevention Association for School Failure) of Saint-Michel-sur-Orge, the Collège Jean Zay of Morsang-sur-Orge, the Ehpad (Accommodation facility for dependent elderly) Le Village of Arpajon, the kindergarten Robert Desnos of Fleury-Mérogis, the Institut Départemental Enfance et Famille of Brétigny-sur-Orge and the High School Edmond Michelet of Arpajon.

Artistics collaborators: Pascale Germain (basket weaver), Armando Barbosa, Gheorghe Berinde, Bernard Bourgeois, Antonio Figuereido, Alain Petrisot and Raymond Schwartz (pigeon fanciers).

Bringing together life sciences, popular mythology, and the visual arts, the “C.C.C. (Club Colombophile du Cœur)” (the Pigeon-club of the heart) is an art project that has taken shape around the mystery of avian navigation. Pigeon races are based on these birds’ uncanny ability to return to their pigeon loft when they are released in places they have never seen before. Yet the birds’ internal compass continues to be something of a mystery for pigeon fanciers and scientists. Most pigeon fanciers roll their eyes when asked about the birds’ 6^th sense. Some talk about the “magnetic sense”, while others advance the theory of “olfactive maps” or following major highways… To put it another way, they haven’t a clue, and in truth they don’t much care.

A collaborative dovecote: 

Through the creation of a collaborative dovecote, in partnership with various pigeon fanciers from Essonne, the artist offered a series of workshops and performances open to all, inspired by scientific experiments on bird navigation: Gustav Kramer's solar compass, Floriano Papi's olfactory maps, Shigeru Watanabe's experiments on the sensitivity of birds to cubist and impressionist painting, etc ...

A collaboration between artisans and local actors:

As part of this project, Éric Giraudet de Boudemange worked with local artisans: artisan basket maker to create mirror baskets inspired by the artifice of Kramer, perfume designer to try to create a fragrance for a neighborhood to reverse the poles of the urban map, magnetizer to try to weave the links between the magnetic compass of the pigeon (sensitive to terrestrial magnetism) and the healing powers of the magnetizer, choir to try to put in music the flight of the pigeons in the manner of interpretations of ancient omens, the drone industry, etc. These craftsmen shared their knowledges with the participants during variable-geometry workshops, accessible to all and designed in discussion with the participants.

The residency thus made it possible to open up avenues of research leading to collaborations with groups of young and old amateurs and local actors — from pigeon racers to drone pilots — with the objective of creating a series of works inspired by the scientific and folkloric study of this mysterious navigation.
 

Video game of the “Club Colombophile du Cœur”:

The “Club Colombophile du Cœur” gave rise to the creation of an online video game by the artist: this digital production retraces in a dreamy form the educational activities carried out during the “Club Colombophile du Cœur”. Each partner of the residency benefits from a dedicated chapter detailing the workshops that took place during the many meetings with the artist. The map in which the player moves is a collaborative synthesis of all the “Essonne seen from the sky” workshops that took place during the summer of 2020: participants were invited to imagine the landscape crossed by the pigeon from the place of release to the dovecote. The characters are 90% illustrated by the participants.

Click to play

The C.C.C. (Club Colombophile du Cœur) takes place within the residency mission of CAC Brétigny. Cœur d’Essonne Agglomération is kicking off in 2017 a three-year partnership with the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Île-de-France and the Academy of Versailles with the signing of a Local Arts Education Contract in partnership with the Department of the Essonne. This residency mission was conceived and developed for the region’s inhabitants, especially local young people, and starts from a network of school establishments, associations, and cultural, social, sociocultural, economic and educational entities in Cœur d’Essonne Agglomération.

Éric Giraudet de Boudemange was born in 1983 in Boulogne Billancourt. He lives in Paris and works in France and abroad. After studying at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts  of Paris, at the contemporary art studio of Fresnoy and the Rijksakademie of Amsterdam, he was invited to artistic residencies in many institutions in France but also in the Netherlands, Egypt, Benin and the United States. Recently, he did several performances at the Pompidou Center, the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard and the La Criée center for contemporary art (France) and exhibited at the Fries Museum (Netherlands) and Les Capucins center for contemporary art (France). His works arise from a fieldwork, an ethnographic research which he transforms into the workshop, in personal and poetic narratives. They take various forms: video, installations, sculptures, performances; more recently, video games.

For further information about this project, please contact: j.kremer@coeuressonne.fr