Interzones Playground is an artistic project that will take place in Greece, under the impulse of encounters between artist/activist collectives and in situ interventions on vacant billboards.
Download the press kit in PDF or watch it online:
A – PROJECT PRESENTATION
B – RESEARCH LINK TO THE PROJECT
C – SOME MOVEMENTS AND INITIATIVES
D – ABOUT THE COLLECTIVE
E – RECENT EXHIBITION
F – THANKS
A – PROJECT PRESENTATION
This artistic project is initiated by the five of us, and will occur in Greece starting next autumn, from September to December. We’ve been following the country’s current events attentively, and more specifically since the first revolts in 2008. We have already started collaborating with Greek residents who will accompany us along the way.
The project holds two ambitions. The first one is to activate the meeting with groups or individuals who wish to introduce new ways of production, of exchange, and of life in Greece today. The second one seeks to invest vacant billboards, those that can be found on the side of highways and fast lanes, since the beginning of the Greek economic crisis, through the circulation of texts and images, the organization of temporary events (video screenings, festivities, performances) but also through various interventions that would consist in cut-outs, disassembling, transforming, and reusing the material that constitutes that very architecture.
We have a particular interest in certain recent experiences that have been happening in Greece for the past few years. The recently created TEM (Topiki Enallaktiki Monada), a monetary system based on the exchange of goods and services implemented in the city of Vólos, the collectivization and self-management of various companies such as VIO.ME in Thessaloniki, or the actions led by the disobedience collective Den Plirono in favor of free public service, interest us specifically. In our opinion, these projects that combine self-management, creativity, and activism represent a constructive response to the extreme situations to which the Greek population is currently confronted (wage freeze, mass lay-offs, corruption, censorship, police repression, the rising popularity of right-wing extremists, the departure of the country’s youth, the frightening rise of suicide rates). In a global context of discord, we’ve chosen to focus on the discovery and exploration of these manifestations and initiatives, which will constitute the central thread of our production on and around billboards.
Whether the different actions be organized by citizens or autonomous, their growing generalization illustrates a desire, but also a capacity to not endure and suffer the present and its current events. So people come up with innovative systems, they define new ways of living and existing, placing ingenuity at the very core of their values.
These actions help valorize the leading role of human imagination in our existence. The protagonists leading these actions are ahead of their time, they go for the unusual and provoke the ruptures necessary to all distancing – in this way they aspire to imagine other possibilities. These people capture our attention in the way they experiment at their very own scale, with genuine alternatives, sometimes considered as minor or non viable by some, and do not cease nonetheless to question our relation to power in what is called “advanced democracy”.
Elaborating systems that are different from the ones that govern our day and age is a way of reflecting on how we can come together differently. With that in mind, notions of standard individualism and imperative cost-effectiveness are no longer central to functioning. This reflects the will to live in a world in which our desires - like the actions that stem from them – aren’t high-jacked and absorbed by various measures that capture and monopolize our minds, symbolized by billboards on the side of the road for example, which may be dated but are still being used.
We would like each action to be led with careful attention to the places and situations they lead to and through. Because of the numerous sites, we wish to think each new construction like a receptacle which could receive forms of expression reflecting various degrees of reality (from factual content to more fictional content). These oversized advertising structures, both private and costly, and yet currently vacant, can be interpreted as an invitation to become a medium usable by all, like a common space based on sharing and broadcasting. Though the quality of their surface is no longer central, one can be encouraged to question and reconsider their architecture so as to subvert their initial function. Apprehending billboards in that perspective introduces the hypothesis that these structures may have the capacity to reflect shifted perceptions, ideas, transcribed reference images that could lead to building dialogues in public space.
By seeking to keep the necessary distance with the seductive power of these boards/signs – great is the temptation to play on the esthetic of their architecture and to obstruct what their original function is, just like we are aware of the traps contained in the idea of recovering their surface, the worst-case scenario being that our actions be perceived as another publicity campaign – we wish to suggest and stage a post-capitalist story in which these billboards could play a genuine political role, far away from a propagandist or mercantile function.
The ambition is to imagine different possibilities of written, drawn, projected, collectively performed interventions, following modalities established on the spot. This will consist in collecting information and matter as we travel, to create ricochet trajectories between each billboard, each region, and each group so as to create a type of documentary, which would unravel in space. This would constitute a non-linear story that could be followed progressively and space could resemble gutters, those white spaces one can find in printed text or comic books that arouse the reader’s imagination. The landscape, architecture, and participating inhabitants would incarnate these interstices, creating a constant back and forth movement between the signs and reality. We would also like to attribute an important role to the organization of temporary events, in order to pursue questions linked to gatherings and the configurations that a meal, the occupation of a given place, or actions can lead to. We have already started experimenting with this through the organization of events that have enabled us to finance a part of our project. We are deliberately open to improvisation, since imposing ideas and pre-established forms seems inconceivable with this particular project. We wish to act with respect for the regions we travel through and the people living in them.
We truly hope our intentions will be perceived in the clearest way possible, and that our orientations and choices to act in a foreign context (all the while remaining inextricably linked to our own context) won’t be received as an intrusion or aggression towards the Greek people and their environment.
B – RESERACH LINKED TO THE PROJECT
A documentary dimension is inherent to our project. This essential aspect of our practice consists in gathering information (visual, textual, audio, …), and acts on different levels: compose raw material for thought, reflection, and artistic experimentation, represent what production processes are set up, and demonstrate the local context and methods with which we are acting.
The circulation of the collected information will take on different shapes and temporalities: at a steady rhythm through a blog we will have created and will feed throughout the whole trip and subsequently once we are back in France, by publishing edited matter.
This second phase corresponds to our desire to share our experience and in turn, inform on the country’s global situation and more precisely on the elaborated collective approaches and initiatives that we will have come across.
It is also through this process that we plan to make up for the difficulty to access information around these types of projects that remain mostly ignored by mass media. Thereafter, our goal is to put forward and allow people to see a singular cartography displaying our critical perspective on the situation and also affirm our support to these forms of resistance.
C – SOME MOVEMENTS AND INITIATIVES
LE TEM (Topiki Enalktiki Monada)
The Greek government encourages certain initiatives so as to reduce the crisis’ consequences and sustain the growth of other forms of entrepreneurship and local development. Accordingly, the TEM (which stands for Topiki Enallaktiki Monada, alternative local currency) is an alternative currency system based on the exchange of goods and services, established in 2009. This dematerialized currency operates on a point-based card system and secured Open Source computer networks. Though it is equivalent to the Euro, it comes as a complement to the European currency, but does not seek to replace it entirely – the Greek people underline the fact that certain goods are simply not convertible. First initiated in Volos, identical networks have since then been set up in different cities (in Patras, in the island of Corfu, and in the suburbs of Athens). They allow many inhabitants to protect their commercial and professional activity.
http://labogrec.blog.lemonde.fr/tag/volos/
http://www.autogestion.asso.fr/?p=1664
http://www.framablog.org/index.php/post/2012/08/04/monnaie-libre-grece-crise
LABOUR RECOVERY / RESUMPTION
In response to businesses repeatedly shutting down – mostly due to plain and simple administrative abandonment, therefore inevitably provoking an important increase of unemployment and a dramatic deterioration in work conditions – workers have been getting together and adopting radical positions.
The permanent occupation of work premises and the resumption of work under total worker control seem to be a multiplying phenomena. Worker cooperatives are organized around the principles of direct democracy and participatory economics, and the workers resume product production and distribution, without the need of any general management. These models carried out in Greece, inspired by movements and similar experiences achieved in Argentina in 2000, are still rare but increasing. Whether they are instigated by the workers from VIO.ME (short for Viomihaniki Metalleftiki) a factory in Thessaloniki, from the periodical Le Journal des Rédacteurs (previously called Eleftheriotypia) or from the Kilkis hospital, all insist on the key role of these types of positions. According to them, their isolated experiences must now fall within a global system of cooperative commerce, whose model, established by the workers, is still being built.
DEN PLIRONO
Citizen collectives have been regrouping to fight against tax rises applied to public transportation, public health, energy, and highways. Under the name Den Plirono, which stands for “I do not pay,” they explicitly express their will to stop paying the price of their country’s debt. This is demonstrated through the civil disobedience acts they lead called “total autoreduction” which consist in: operations in favor of free highways and public transportation, distribution of leaflets in hospitals encouraging patients to refuse to pay for healthcare, switching electricity back on in homes that do not pay electricity bills, distributing information on tax-exempt status (a way of declaring personal bankruptcy to avoid attachment of earnings).
Not only do the trade unions of the concerned companies offer their support to this Panhellenic movement, but also many local councils (such as Patras, third biggest city in the country). DEI, the national electricity company has also joined the Den Plirono in their resistance to the incorporation of new taxes on electricity bills and their actions are multiplying: refusal to cut power in “non-paying” homes, taking over company buildings, cutting power in ministries and payment computer systems.
http://oclibertaire.free.fr/spip.php?article938
http://oclibertaire.free.fr/spip.php?article1087
SPOROS
An authentic network of collectives has been organizing itself since the beginning of 2000 in the goal of reintroducing an alternative, united, and fair trade, proving to be essential to the development of agricultural initiatives. Within this approach, Pelitit or Sporos take a census and circulate information on all the varieties of grain and seeds in the public domain, thus giving everyone the possibility to grow them and eliminating farmers’ dependency on big firms. They also give access to training for alternative farming techniques combining ecological aspects (biological agriculture, permaculture, …) and economic advantages.
More generally, these types of projects aim to protect farmers’ rights, as well as local seed companies’ assets and local agricultural biodiversity, but also reestablish direct interaction between producers, distributors, and consumers.
http://sporos.org/
http://www.autogestion.asso.fr/?p=2856
We first had the idea of collaborating on the Billboarders project in June 2012. Both diverse collective experiences and common interests in work processes, ways of intervention, and life styles encouraged the five of us to work together.
Omick has been developing an artistic practice essentially oriented towards drawing and painting. He experiments with these on all types of locations within the public space, using different techniques (aerosol, paintbrush, spraying) to unfold his bestiary tinted in both acid and childish-psyche. At the same time his activity extends to drawing on paper, silkscreen printing, and engraving. After a couple trips to Greece, he came back reporting the existence of these billboards and suggested we travel there to work on them.
François Daillant is an artist whose work deals with drawing, elaborating volume, and sound experimentation, amidst a research that operates combinations of different realities – temporal, geographic, or material. After a number of different solo and group exhibitions, this research progresses more and more towards in situ and collaborative projects. The EXSIT residency in 2012 at Sunset Résidence gallery was the occasion for a first collaboration with Antoine Lambin, Alban-Paul Valmary, and Valentin Barry. They all met at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art et Design de Valence where they were all graphic design students. Their scope of reflection questions graphic design as a tool for accompanying and facilitating participative social dynamics, both militant and civic.
In addition to the group we have formed, other artists such as Annabelle Folliet, Sébastien Magne, Charline Foucault, Romain Bauer, and Jeanne Gangloff will be occasionally accompanying us and leading simultaneous projects. While addressing different approaches and artistic mediums like video, photography, and writing, they will contribute in various ways to the elaboration of documentary and artistic productions.
E – RECENT EXHIBITION
November 2012
Billboarders, in Platform de Muret, Graphéine Festival, from November 9 to December 21, 2012
François Daillant, Omick, Antoine Lambin, Alban-Paul Valmary, Valentin Barry.
https://www.facebook.com/plateformedartdemuret
July 2012
RDV 2012, National Gallery of Cap Town, South Africa, from July 11 to March 24, 2012.
François Daillant
http://rendezvous12.ensba-lyon.fr/index.php?/artistes/francois-daillant/
June 2012
Exsit, Sunset Résidence, Exhibition and residency, Lyon, from April 19 to May 12, 2012.
François Daillant, Antoine Lambin, Alban-Paul Valmary, Valentin Barry.
January 2012
L’enfant Trouble, Exhibition, Cri de l’encre, Lyon, from January 13 to January 28, 2012.
Omick.
http://www.lecridelencre.com/?page_id=8
September 2011
A Step Aside, Résonance de la Biennale de Lyon 2011, Galeries Angle, St Paul-Trois-Châteaux, from September 21 to December 17, 2011.
Antoine Lambin, Alban-Paul Valmary, Valentin Barry.
http://www.angle-art.fr/UN-PAS-DE-COTE-A-STEP-ASIDE.html?id_document=811#documents_portfolio
September 2011
RDV 2011, Contemporary Art Institute of Villeurbanne, from September 11 to November 23, 2011.
François Daillant.
http://rendezvous12.ensba-lyon.fr/index.php?/artistes/francois-daillant/
June 2011
Courtoisie, in situ project, young workers’ center in Carmes, Toulouse, from June 30 to July 10, 2011.
Francois Daillant.
http://www.pointdefuite.net/expositions/courtoisie/
May 2011
Implosion/Explosion, Group exhibition for All Over fanzine launch, All Over, Lyon.
Omick.
December 2010
En Alternance, Galerie Rezeda, Lille, from November 18 to December 4, 2010.
Antoine Lambin, Alban-Paul Valmary, Valentin Barry.
http://galerie-rezeda.net/
November 2010
Nous Sommes, International Design Biennial of Saint-Etienne, from November 20 to December 5, 2010.
Valentin Barry
http://www.biennale2010.citedudesign.com/expo_n-1_2.php
November 2010
Signal Sourd, Galeries Nomades of the Contemporary Art Institute of Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes.
Exhibition from November 5 to February 6, 2010, Angle Art Contemporain in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux.
François Daillant.
http://i-ac.eu/fr/expositions/25_galeries-nomades/2010/83_SIGNAL-SOURD
Avril 2010
Antirust, group exhibition, 81 Store, Lyon.
Omick.
- Vincent Ange
- Adrien Courtial
- Romain Bauer
- Emilie Dorel
- Louis Dunbar
- Julien Fesselet
- Annabelle Foliet
- Angel Fougerolle
- Charline Foucault
- Julia Frumy
- Johan Gros
- Jeanne Gangloff
- Corinne Guerci
- Vincent Guillermin
- Mathias Humbert
- Leo Jaricot
- Alex Krassa
- Martin Laxenaire
- Camille Liobet
- Manuel Reynaud
- Gaultier Scerra
- Iris
- Dominique Valmary
- Naima Said
- Mathieu Valette
- Daniel Bouvet
- Simon Zerbib
- Jérôme
- Gaelle Vilard
- Julien Fesselet
- Gaelle Choisne
- Eleonore Jasseny
- Simon Parlange
- Christelle Mot
- Brian Van Den Ynden
- Lionel Catelan
- Angelica Ruffier
- Yann Alary
- Clement Mancini
- Audrey Sauvignet
- Matthieu Quillet
- Mathieu Tremblin
- Benjamin Lieb
- Laura Simon
- Camille Szklorz
- Ada Banaszak
- La famille Lambin
- Louis Cahu
- David Poullard
- Alain Barthélémy
- Pauline-le-Caignec
- Yann Tournigand
- Thomas Bohl
- Alexandra Corneyllie
- Bien Urbain
- Florent Grandouillet
- Mélanie Mondo
- Pierre Gangloff
- Romano de Vomito
- Thomas Froppier
- David Posth-Koller
- Komprempa
- David Vallance
- Fiona Valentine Thomann
- Alexis Jacquand
- Gaelle Berton
- Jérôme Daly
- Anne-Lyse Renon
- François Desormeau
- Pierre Hébrard
- Jean-Baptiste Fribourg
- Charlie Maqueda
- Adrien Vasquez
- Maxime Boidy
- Robin Ladous
- Xavier Hubert
- Nathalie Muchamad
- Hazelnut1254
- Les Ravaulx
- Yannick Jacquier
- Rémi Louvat
- Florian Villain
- Philippe & Brigitte Clairet
- Paul & Jacqueline Manevy
- Loïc Vallière
- Direct420
- Nathalie May
- Marie Hélène Delbost Henry & Patrick Henry
- Nicolas Saintsever
- Pierre & Christine Guillaud
- Pascal Nicolas-Lestrat
- Adeline Duquennoy
- Manuel Reynaud
- Rose Coissac
- Brigitte Gangloff
- Laure Vial Lenfant
- Yann Tournigand
- Elizabeth Pallard
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