Imagine2020 SummerLab “Farm Camp !”
From 6 to 9 July 2017, COAL is organizing “Farm Camp!”, the european SummerLab of the Imagine2020 network as part of its Laboratory of Sustainable Culture. Twelve european artists chosen by the member organizations of the Imagine2020 network are invited for 4 days on the Ferme Urbaine de Saint-Denis. The objective is to produce works and discussions about food, in the very specific context of the Urban Farm of Saint-Denis.
Context : The Laboratory of Sustainable Culture#2 : “The Table and the Territory”
To experiment and implement a cultural approach of the transformation of the territories and set the ecological transition and adaptation to climate change, COAL develops its laboratory of sustainable culture, a collaborative program involving humanities, sciences of nature and the arts. The artistic and scientific direction of the laboratory of sustainable culture is provided jointly by COAL and the CNRS laboratory LADYSS. This initiative is supported by Imagine2020 network funded by European Union, the french Ministry of Ecology and ministry of Culture and communication and the Fondation Carasso.
The 2017-2018 “the Table and the Territory” is the second session of COAL’s laboratory of sustainable culture, after Soils Fictions, a first edition based on soils. “The Table and the Territory” focuses on the relationship between food and land in a context of necessary adaptation to climate change. It takes for starting point innovative initiatives in the sustainable food sector in Île-de-France (Seine-Saint-Denis department) and Lyon involving artists and scientists international residencies who will share the results of their experiments through an exhibition, public event, publication and training course.
One of these innovative initiatives takes place at the Urban Farm of Saint-Denis. It is a new, unusual project: the transformation of the last 5 hectares of agricultural land in Seine-Saint-Denis into an innovative agricultural and cultural space under the artistic direction of the artist Olivier Darné. This project gathers actions of researchers (Christophe Saintagne (Chef de cuisine), Christophe Lavelle (généticien, CNRS et Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle), de Nathalie Blanc (CNRS LADYSS), Marine Legrand (MNHN), Pauline Guinard (ENS ULM), Lou Gauthier (ENS)) and artists (Olivier Darné and the Parti Poétique) under the artistic and scientific direction of COAL and the LADYSS.
COAL, the LADYSS and the Parti Poétique (owner of Saint-Denis’ Urban Farm) work therefore as collaboraters for the laboratory of sustainable culture #2.
The place : the Urban Farm of Saint-Denis
At the beginning of 2017, Parti Poétique has signed a 25-year lease to take over the last farm on the borders of Paris, following the retirement of farmer René Kersanté. There, Parti Poétique is currently developing the ‘Saint-Denis Urban Farm’, a urban permaculture farm that is also home to public events, educational workshops, cultural programming, and in the future a cooking school for in partnership with starred chef Alain Ducasse. Objectives of this local participative project are to safeguard biodiversity in the heart of the city, raise the local population’s awareness in relation to food, nature and culture, and support the social and professional inclusion of residents – especially women – from Saint-Denis, a deprived suburb facing unemployment and poverty, often stigmatised in the media and the general opinion. The ambition is to celebrate the cultural diversity of the neighbourhood as a social, economic and ecological asset.
The SummerLab takes place in the Urban Farm of Saint-Denis with activities specific to the context of the place.
Program
The artists are invited to set up a FARM CAMP inside the Saint-Denis Urban Farm : they will inhabit the place, feel at home, be nourished by and respond to the project. The goal of the gathering is to allow each participant to produce a creative response to the Farm project and the proposed activities, by a means of their choice. The idea is to invite the artists to be the first contributors to a local, alternative art fund “made in 93” (93 being the national department number referring to Saint-Denis). The contribution can be:a tool, object, piece of furniture useful to the farm, an artwork, a performance or workshop, a text, etc.
Projects will be presented by the artists on the Summer Lab last day (Sunday July 9). The idea is to open the Farm, for the first time since its creation, to a selected audience (max. 100) – COAL partners, representatives of local organizations, Parti Poétique friends, etc.
The artists
There will be twelve artists participating in this SummerLab 2017, including :
- Siobhan McGrath from Artsadmin (UK)
- Maria Lucia Cruz Correia from Bunker (SI)
- Gosie Vervloessem from Kaaitheater (BE)
- Theo Omambala from Lift (UK)
- Maidie van den bos from Rotterdamse Schouwburg (NL)
- Mārtiņš Zariņš and Toms Treinis from New Theater Institute of Latvia (LG)
- Olivier Nattes and one meber of the collective Kom.post from COAL (FR)
European SummerLab
Urban Farm of Saint-Denis
July 6 – 9, 2017
(c) Olivier Darné
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