Open/Ground #3
Self-taught artists have their own logics. Institutions have their own habits. Four days to work on the gap between them.
In hip hop dance, voguing, house, whacking, as in many other artistic practices long left on the margins, self-taught artists have built their own aesthetic codes, creative dynamics, ways of passing things on and of forming community. Their work circulates more and more within institutions, but those who create it still rarely gain access to programming or directing roles. Many remain precarious, too rarely supported to create in good conditions, when their activity isn’t simply at risk of disappearing.
Certain questions are unavoidable for the public cultural sector: how can these artists and their communities be better recognised and supported? How should resources be distributed in an already fragile context? How can the sector actively take part in renewing programming and audiences?
Over four days, at the CCN and at Hôtel Pasteur, meetings, panel discussions, workshops and tool-sharing sessions bring together artists, programmers, cultural policy officials, educators and anyone concerned by these questions, to interrogate inherited cultural hierarchies and build new shared ground.
Process: Artists and companies invited to share a work in progress, in whatever state it’s in, with no imposed format: presentations range from a sketch to a fully developed model, or simply a conversation over coffee.
Tools: Practical workshops to pool resources, methods and field practices.
Talks: With no position to defend and no expected conclusion, open discussions built from questions arising today, to cross experiences and set in motion thoughts that simply need a space to exist.
13, 14 and 15 October | 10am to 5.30pm | CCN St-Melaine
Open to sector professionals and anyone concerned. Free – Booking required.