First edition of a cycle of events initiated by Catherine Baÿ – curator of this first opus – TRANCHE DE VIE explores the window as an architectural section revealing the interior of a house or as a sequence of life that we would witness.
During a long weekend, twenty artists and performers will invest the space of The Window gallery, putting into play the window that separates them from the spectators, whether they are residents or simple passers-by. The architecture of this space invites us to question the issues we have been confronted with since the beginning of the pandemic: redefining the public and the private, isolation and living together, disunity and the presence of the body.
This device invites us to question the border between the one who looks and the one who is looked at, the one who acts and the one who observes. In the continuity of her work, Catherine Baÿ raises again the question of the place that each one grants himself in our societies. The one we are assigned, as well as the one we assign to ourselves.
Four artist-in-residency at the Cité internationale des arts – Ingrid Liavaag, Thea Soti, Delphine Bereski and Nefeli Papadimouli – present their work developed during their residency.
Thea Soti will perform a duration performance at The Window in coexistence with Nefeli Papadimouli's costume-concept, exclusively designed for this event. The performance will represent the interactions of the body and the constrained sculpture by exploring the sound of the combination of narrative and human voice.
Ingrid Liavaag again plays with the distinction between the private and the public with the performance Nuclear family. A family is having dinner. Mother, Charlotte, father, Jan and their daughter Nora. We are invited to watch their warm routine through a large window, separating their private life from public ways. In the headphones, we can listen to the couple therapy sessions, witnessing the marital difficulties between Charlotte and Jan due to the reduction of gender roles.
As for Delphine Bereski, with the projection of Promenade #1 and the performance of Promenade #2, she reconstructs the personal and collective experience of bodies in confinement. Promenade #1 traces its recovery by the movement in April 2020 at the Cité internationale des arts, while Promenade #2 reconsiders the situation a year later. After the breathless figure in the video disappears, the same body resurfaces and stretches into The Window's gallery to continue the story.
Nefeli Papadimouli (Greece) and Ingrid Liavaag (Norway) are recipients of the Cité internationale des arts Visual Arts Committees.
Thea Soti (Germany) is in residency at the Cité internationale des arts through the program of the German Federal Ministry of Culture and Media.
Delphine Bereski (France) is in residency at the Cité internationale des arts through the program of the Association des Anciens Élèves de l'École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD).