• Paris 8 University / Legacies and modalities of co-creation practices
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    PAST EVENTS

    Thursday March 3 from 3.30 p.m to 5.30 p.m

    Guest speaker: Maude Mandart, young artist and grad­uate from the Quimper Beaux-Arts school. This ses­sion will focus on a film pro­ject led in col­lab­o­ra­tion with André Ferrer about “a wooden vil­lage that was entirely built by young people fol­lowing a rein­te­gra­tion pro­gram between the early 1950s and 1969.” Her work builds on a selec­tion of audio and film archival mate­rial that she will pre­sent during the course of the event. 

    View of the seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices"

    Maude Mandart, March 3 at Villa Vassilieff.

    Thursday March 17 from 3.30 p.m to 5.30 p.m

    Guest speaker: Véronique Goudinoux (con­tem­po­rary art his­to­rian and the­o­reti­cian, pro­fessor at the Lille University). She will address her recently pub­lished work: Oeuvrer à plusieurs, regroupe­ment et col­lab­o­ra­tions entre artistes (Collective Endeavor: Gathering and col­lab­o­ra­tion between artists); Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2015.

    Image : Congrès des con­struc­tivistes et des dadaïstes à Weimar, septembre 1922. Photographe inconnu. © Berlin, Bauhaus-Archiv.
     
    “The exis­tence of a text pre­senting a com­pre­hen­sive survey of artists’ gath­ering and col­lab­o­ra­tion from the Renaissance until the 20th cen­tury was missing. This book attempts to fill this knowl­edge gap as it invents a new object putting into per­spec­tives artistic coop­er­a­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive prac­tices from past and pre­sent time. It also focuses on the many places that per­mitted cre­ation to take place in ‘social’ envi­ron­ments. Prior to artistic duos or col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­jects as we know them today, artists were meeting and gath­ering in pro­duc­tion and repro­duc­tion work­shops, in academies, counter-academies, guilds, vil­lages, and colonies, in artists’ soci­eties, coop­er­a­tives, com­mu­ni­ties, clubs, schools, and move­ments. Further, it focuses on the ges­tures and activ­i­ties defining some of the col­lab­o­ra­tive works (such as gifts, games, and par­ties), and unveils the extent to which some artists have con­ceived new working methods that echo recent calls for col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­jects.
    Group action – inside and out­side the art field – ques­tions the time we live in, the divide between small and big scales of society. Additionally, it sug­gests that a larger array of path­ways can reframe rela­tion­ships between indi­vid­uals and groups: we may thus speak of cohe­sive, eco­nom­ical, coop­er­a­tive, polit­ical, crit­ical, and exper­i­mental models. 
    Being located at the inter­sec­tion of art his­tory and cul­tural his­tory of anthro­pology, while being crit­ical of a his­tor­ical nar­ra­tive priv­i­leging an autonomous becoming of art, the pre­sent volume opens up a reflec­tion on con­tem­po­rary col­lab­o­ra­tive prac­tices and on their pos­tu­lates that too often remain implicit.

    View of the seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices", 2016. Picture : Villa Vassilieff.

    Thursday March 31 from 3.30 p.m to 5.30 p.m

    Guest : Pascal Nicolas-Le Strat
    Cancelled due to social protests.

    Thursday April 7 from 3.30 p.m to 5.30 p.m

    Guest : Andrea Ancira (Pernod Ricard Fellow)

    Métrobarbèsrochechou Art is the name of an exper­i­mental film col­lec­tive con­sti­tuted in 1977 by four artists: Gaël Badaud, Teo Hernández, Jakobois and Michel Nedjar. Through an inti­mate col­lab­o­ra­tion and common prac­tice in Paris, each member man­aged to affirm and develop their own par­tic­ular gaze and approach to cinema without com­pro­mising their com­plicity. Among other exam­ples of con­tem­po­rary col­lab­o­ra­tive artistic pro­jects that some of the par­tic­i­pants of the sem­inar will pre­sent we will examine the method­ology of this col­lec­tive as well as some extracts of their films in order to dis­cuss the sig­nif­i­cance and con­tra­dic­tions of col­lab­o­ra­tion in con­tem­po­rary art, in exper­i­mental prac­tices and in other com­moning prac­tices of everyday life. This con­ver­sa­tion will be part of the research pro­ject that Andrea Ancira is devel­oping at Villa Vassilieff during her res­i­dency.

    Here more info: http://www.villavas­silieff.net/?Fellows-2016



    Views of the work­shop with Andrea Ancira, Pernod Ricard Fellowship res­i­dent.

    The sem­inar’s blog : http://www.arpla.fr/mu/cre­ation­scol­lec­tives/

    Thursday October 27 from 3.30 p.m to 5.30 p.m

    At Villa Vassilieff

    MODALITIES OF CO-CREATION PRACTICES
    With Géraldine Gourbe

    Vidéogrammes du film Womanhouse de Johanna Demetrakas, 1972-1974, Le peuple qui manque éditions.
    View of the seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices", 2016. Picture : Villa Vassilieff.

    Following the recent French pub­li­ca­tion of the book In the Canyon, Revise the Canon, Savoir utopique, péd­a­gogie rad­i­cale et artist-run com­mu­nity art space en Californie du sud (Shelter Press/ESAAAA), coor­di­nated by Géraldine Courbe, we invited her pre­sent her ongoing research. She will address themes of“­con­scious­ness rising”or “groups seized with aware­ness”as prac­ticed within fem­i­nist move­ments, as well as its uses and con­se­quences that can alter­na­tively be defined as rad­ical, ped­a­gog­ical, or artistic. 
    The eco-fem­i­nist activist Starhawk described the prac­tice as follow: “The group chooses a sub­ject […]. We then seat in a circle. Each person speaks, one after another […]. We speak from our per­sonal expe­ri­ence. When the circle has been com­pleted, we openly dis­cuss sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences that exist between each of us. This dis­cus­sion may be used to develop an anal­ysis.” (Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics, Cambourakis pub­lishing house 1982, 2015)
     
    Géraldine Courbe is an inde­pen­dent researcher and philoso­pher. She earned a PhD in Aesthetics at the Paris-Nanterre/Paris Grand Ouest University, thanks to the sup­port of the DMTS schol­ar­ship granted by the Ministry of Culture. Her PhD thesis focused on the polit­ical aes­thetics of the Womanhouse and Woman’s Buildings, two pro­jects that had been ini­ti­ated by Judy Chicago in Los Angeles during the 1970s and 1980s. 
    She is now Professor in Aesthetics at the Ecole Superieure d’Art de l’Agglomeration d’Annecy, at Sciences Po, at the Marseilles Beaux-Arts school, and at the Metz University. 
    With the sup­port of Institut Français, CNAP, and the cul­tural ser­vices of the French Embassy in New York, she coor­di­nated     In the Canyon, Revise the Canon: utopian knowl­edge, rad­ical ped­a­gogy and Artist-run Community Art Space in Southern California pub­lished by Shelter Press/ESAAA. She is cur­rently writing a book on Allan Kaprow and on the North-West American coast, enti­tled Kaprow, Californien ou l’inservi­tude volon­taire (FAMA Collection, directed by Xavier Douroux, Presse du réel).
    She co-directed a pro­gram and exhi­bi­tion about the legacy of writer Kathy Arker;      K. Acker: The Office, pre­sented at Triangle, Marseille, with Dorothée Dupuis. 
    Along with Florence Ostende, she ben­e­fited from a research and cura­to­rial grant attributed to pro­jects looking at the CNAP col­lec­tions and the sub­ject of counter-cul­ture in France from 1947 until 1964. She was asso­ciate curator, with Florence Ostende, for the exhi­bi­tion     Ecole(s) de Nice, (MAMAC Nice) under the gen­eral super­vi­sion of Hélène Guenin in the con­text of the Centre Pompidou’s 40th anniver­sary, Summer 2017.

    Thursday November 10

    At Villa Vassilieff

    MODALITIES OF CO-CREATION PRACTICES
    With Camille Louis

    Autour de la table, Nantes, Théâtre Universitaire, Jaanuary 2012. Picture : Mathieu Bouvier.
    View of the seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices", 2016. Picture : Villa Vassilieff.

    Having devel­oped a prac­tice located at the inter­sec­tion of sev­eral fields (phi­los­ophy, polit­ical activism, con­fer­ence, per­for­mance, con­ser­va­tional appa­ratus, and sound instal­la­tion) for var­ious years, Camille Louis will pre­sent the manner in which her work (par­tic­u­larly the one that she leads with kom.post, a col­lec­tive that she cre­ated with Laurie Bellanca) gives a pecu­liar atten­tion to the col­lab­o­rator-spec­tator.
    Starting from the obser­va­tion that a great number of so-called “par­tic­i­pa­tive” appa­ra­tuses often con­sist in attributing iden­ti­fied “parts” to func­tions and capac­i­ties, her works parts from this pre-given iden­tity so as to recom­pose sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and com­mons after dis­tin­guished artistic prac­tices par­taking in the “artistic expe­ri­ence.” 
    We call “ex­pe­ri­ences” what is formed through the encounter of “hetero­ge­neous” ele­ments (Spinoza, Deleuze), what takes shape along with artic­u­la­tions between who sees, who acts while seeing, and who sees while acting. Could exper­i­mental nar­ra­tive building con­sist in imple­menting spaces at the inter­sec­tion of artistic propo­si­tion and recep­tion, wherein it is pos­sible to con­sider dif­fer­ently what we call action? Originally “drama” means “ac­tion”, and “ergon” means “cre­ation”. Can the drama-turgy, which invents itself at the time of a “crisis of action” and “ending of the pol­i­tics”, find within exper­i­mental appa­ra­tuses the pos­si­bility to open anew, what –between and inside us- con­tinues acting and inscribing polit­ical recon­fig­u­ra­tion from the redis­tri­bu­tion both of capac­i­ties and func­tions?

    Raising such ques­tions already opens a con­ver­sa­tion, along with its meaning. Neither a dia­logue nor a dis­pute or shared views, the con­ver­sa­tion moves for­ward by unset­tling (as in “con­ver­sare”). It turns around the repar­ti­tion of bodies and spaces, so as to give a “cor­po­re­ality” (name of one of the kom.post pro­jects that will be men­tioned) to what is being built in the “in-between­ness” of an exchange or expe­ri­ence.

    We will talk about this in col­lab­o­ra­tion with speakers and stu­dents.

    Born in 1984, Camille Louis is a play­wright and co-ini­tiator of the inter­na­tional col­lec­tive kom.post (com­posed of researchers, artists and activists). She also holds a PhD in Philosophy, sub­ject that she teaches at both Universities of Paris 7 and Paris 8. Her research is posi­tioned at the crossing point of art and pol­i­tics, and mate­ri­al­izes through dra­maturgic propo­si­tions of var­ious types that always aim at mod­i­fying the per­cep­tion con­di­tions of what we call “ac­tion” (drama).
    Camille Louis pub­lished numerous arti­cles and essays - mostly in France – and pre­sented many per­for­ma­tive con­fer­ences in uni­ver­si­ties and inter­na­tional fes­ti­vals across the world. Camille Louis’ artistic pro­duc­tion has been dis­played at the Avignon fes­tival, at the Berlin TanzImAugust fes­tival, at the Moscow Biennale, at the Athens MIR fes­tival, at the Istanbul Idance, at the Buenos Aires International fes­tival, and, in 2017, at the Bogota Experimenta Sur fes­tival.
    For the 2016-2017 season, she is Associate Playwright at the Maison du spec­tacle vivant, La Bellone in Bruxelles. She lives and works between Athens, Brussels, and Colombia.

    Thursday December 1st

    At la Villa Vassilieff

    MODALITIES OF CO-CREATION PRACTICES
    With Marie Fraser

    Devora Neumark, Présence, 1997, Photo: Mario Belisle.

    Five fun­da­mental ques­tions on col­lab­o­ra­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the art field.
     
    Through a crit­ical per­spec­tive aiming at defining col­lab­o­ra­tive and par­tic­i­pa­tive artistic prac­tices, we will touch upon five fun­da­mental points:
    First; con­vivi­ality and con­sensus as opposed to antag­o­nism and con­flict; sec­ondly the lack of vis­i­bility inherent to some art­works con­demned to dis­ap­pear­ance by reason either of their dema­te­ri­al­iza­tion or due to their “ex­tradis­ci­plinarity” that may induce their removal from the art world; next the social and polit­ical effi­ciency of works elab­o­rated on ges­tures blending in the everyday life until they fade away without a trace; then occu­pa­tion and resis­tance against an increas­ingly pri­va­tized, spec­tac­u­lar­ized and con­trolled public space; and finally, the col­lab­o­ra­tion prac­tices’ inherent risks and fail­ures, their unpre­dictability and the nego­ti­a­tion pro­cess that can be extended to an impor­tant period of time.
     
    Marie Fraser is pro­fessor of con­tem­po­rary art and muse­ology at the University of Québec, Montréal, since 2007. She was head curator of the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, between 2010 and 2013, and curated the BGL col­lec­tive`s exhi­bi­tion at the Canadian Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Since 1997, she has been con­ducting research regarding rela­tional prac­tices and artistic inter­ven­tions in the public sphere.
    Several arti­cles, exhi­bi­tion cat­a­logues, sym­po­siums, con­fer­ences, MA and PhD theses super­vi­sions and exhi­bi­tions have con­tributed to its elab­o­ra­tion: Sur l’expéri­ence de la ville (On the city expe­ri­ence) 1997; Gestes d’Artistes (Artists’ges­tures), 2001; in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Artists’ Space, New York and La Demeure (The Mansion), 2002.

    View of the seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices", 2016. Picture: Villa Vassilieff

    Thursday December 8

    At Villa Vassilieff

    MODALITIES OF CO-CREATION PRACTICES
    With Zheng Bo

    Zheng Bo, Pteridophilia (video screenshot), 2016.

    Title: Plants as Political Allies

    Zheng Bo is a Chinese artist, cur­rently in res­i­dency at Villa Vassilieff with the Pernod Ricard Fellowship. His pro­ject inves­ti­­gates the linkage between polit­ical par­ties as a per­­sis­­tent polit­ical form despite our con­tempt, and weeds as an irre­­press­ible eco­log­ical force despite our dis­­­com­­fort. By asking the seem­ingly illog­ical ques­­tion – what roles did weeds play in the estab­lish­ment of the “Chi­­nese Young Communist Party” in Paris by Chinese stu­dents in the 1920s – Zheng Bo intends to com­­pli­­cate the canon­ical his­­to­ries of the Chinese Communist Party and inter­­na­­tional com­­mu­nism, and push for a more his­­tor­ical under­­s­tanding of the roots of con­tem­po­rary eco­log­ical crisis in China, and glob­ally.

    In the second phase of his pro­ject, in con­ver­sa­­tion with soci­ol­o­gists, polit­ical sci­en­tists, and botanists in Paris, Zheng Bo con­t­niues to fan­­ta­­size the post-human polit­ical party named "Weed Party". How would this party’s ide­o­log­ical, orga­ni­za­­­tional, and emo­­tional shape differ from that of pre­vious com­­mu­nist par­ties? This pro­­ject builds on his pre­vious and cur­rent prac­tice – Weed Party: Shanghai (2014-15, focusing on the botan­ical foot­prints of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai) and Weed Party: Taipei (cur­rent, focusing on the eco­log­ical impact of the Nationalist Party’s retreat from Mainland China to Taiwan in 1949). In Paris, it notably devel­oped through the first work­shop in June, and will con­tinue with a second work­shop in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ecole du Breuil in December.

    The aim of this pro­­ject is to rethink inter­­na­­tion­alism and expand the notion of an inter­­na­­tional alliance of the working class to incor­po­rate other working beings. For the sem­inar « Héritages et modal­ités des pra­tiques de co-créa­tion », Zheng Bo pro­poses to focus on the idea of equality: how can we treat plants as equal part­ners? How can we co-create polit­i­cally with plants?

    Each stu­dent is requested to bring a living plant for the sem­inar, and watch this docu­­men­­tary in advance of December 8.

    The sem­inar will excep­tion­ally take place in the Pernod Ricard studio at Villa Vassilieff. This ses­sion is for Paris 8 stu­dents only.

    Zheng Bo (b. 1974 Beijing) has been making socially engaged art since 2003. He has worked with a wide range of com­­mu­ni­ties, including the Queer Cultural Center in Beijing and Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong. His par­tic­i­­pa­­tory pro­­jects have been exhib­ited in numerous public insti­­tu­­tions in China and abroad. He received a Prize of Excellence from Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2005, and a Juror’s Prize from Singapore Art Museum in 2008. Since 2013, he has been working with weeds as a way to think about ecology and pol­i­tics in Greater China. He received a PhD in Visual & Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester, taught at China Academy of Art from 2010 to 2013, and cur­rently teaches at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

    Seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices" with students from Paris 8 received by Zheng Bo in the Pernod Ricard studio, 2016.
    Seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices" with students from Paris 8 received by Zheng Bo in the Pernod Ricard studio, 2016.
    Seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices" with students from Paris 8 received by Zheng Bo in the Pernod Ricard studio, 2016.
    Seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices" with students from Paris 8 received by Zheng Bo in the Pernod Ricard studio, 2016.
    Seminary "Modalities of co-creation practices" with students from Paris 8 received by Zheng Bo in the Pernod Ricard studio, 2016.