[A]FA Context Conakry

[applied] Foreign Affairs

Univers des Mots

Baerbel Mueller, Frida Robles [applied] Foreign Affairs Institute of Architecture University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.)

Play >Urban

Context Context Context Context Context Context Conakry Conakry Conakry Conakry

Context

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Baerbel Mueller, Frida Robles [applied] Foreign Affairs Institute of Architecture University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.)

Conakry

Context

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Baerbel Mueller, Frida Robles [applied] Foreign Affairs Institute of Architecture University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.)

Conakry

4 —Editorial: Performing Urban | Context Conakry / Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles, 6—Project: 8 Conakry Urban Acupuncture / François Duconseille & UdM, 10 Festival Program, 12 Portique Making Of / [a]FA, 20 Portique Manual / [a]FA, 28 Portique Public Events / [a]FA, 38— Discourse: 40 Hakim Bah, 42 Jean Christophe Lanquetin, 54 François Duconseille & Baerbel Mueller, 64 Lionel Manga, 70 Eric Androa Mindre Kolo & Frida Robles, 80 Claudia Bosse, 90 Ibrahim Mahama & Frida Robles, 94 Bios, 2

96—Process: 98 Encounters with Hakim Bah, Jean Christophe Lanquetin, Dorine Mokha, 106 M2 / On (staging) Objects / Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles, 118 Translocations / Daniel Aschwanden, 124 —Reflections: 126 A Telling / Zach Beale, 132 The Strange City / Carmen Egger, 134 City as Theatre / Ivan Jakaric, 138 Terrain, l’organism, présence / Oliver Alunovic, 140 Un Terrain de Jeu / Gabrielle Ritz, 142 La Ferme Kaporo / Anton Grandcoin, 144 Diary: The Portique / Anni Dai, 148 — Image Credits & Imprint

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Performing Urban | Context Conakry

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

According to the etymological dictionary, context comes from “weaving things together”, from the notion of connecting and binding. But what is it that gets connected when one names a context? Based on what parameters? Under which conditions? To situate a context is to define a territory, a place, a scope within which to understand a fragment of the world. To mark a context can mean the delimitation of the possibility of (ultimate) connectivity. Could it be that to put something into context might inhibit the overall interrelational nature of things?

In 2018, [applied] Foreign Affairs was invited by Jean Christophe Lanquetin and François Duconseille, founders of Play>Urban, to collaborate and be part of the theater festival Univers des Mots, which took place in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, in November 2019. The festival, directed

by Bilia Bah and Hakim Bah, was meant to continue thinking the urban as a space for performance and theater, as it had done in previous editions.

However, for this edition, the urban scope of the festival had been expanded and needed to be accentuated, as the productions were to be staged in three neighborhoods of Conakry — Kipé, Nongo and Kaporo — and to function as real urban acupuncture: relational, with radiating effects, and with the potential to reach all kinds of audiences. [a]FA, as part of Univers des Mots, was meant to be in dialogue with the artists and scenographers to develop a strategy and spatial gesture to bridge the city with the festival. With a very limited time frame and budget, the team, formed of Anni Dai, Carmen Egger, Ivan Jakaric, Oliver Alunovic and Zach Beale, designed and realized “The Portique”, a structure/ intervention that was activated at different events and venues of the festival.

Once this intervention was materialized, it was seen by some as “out of this world” or “having directly landed from Mars into Conakry”. We were surprised by these comments, as, for us, the structure had been generated by its specific urban context. For example, choosing pink as a non-prevalent color in the city, but using threads referencing the loom and textile tradition in Guinea, as well as Conakry´s laundry robes. These somewhat casual questionings made us reflect on the simply phrased but crucial question: What does it mean to work contextually?

Given the complexity and irreducible question of contextual artistic practice, we asked our friends and collaborators to continue dwelling upon it, and to reflect upon the notion of context in their own work. The reflections portrayed in the discourse section of this magazine are rich, confronting, and, definitely, inspiring. They bring no resolute answer, rather more intricate and flavorful questions. Such as Lionel Manga’s final remark: “Something mildly contemptuous, an unacknowledged form of arrogance, can sometimes lie beneath the innocuous appearance of contextualization…”

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Project Project Project Project Project Project Project

Project Project Project

Conakry Urban Acupuncture / François Duconseille & Univers des Mots Festival Program Portique Making Of / [a]FA Portique Manual / [a]FA Portique Public Events / [a]FA

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Conakry Urban Acupuncture

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François Duconseille & Univers des Mots Le 27/10/2019, à 10:13, “baerbel mueller” a écrit : Hello Jean Christophe, Francois, Hakim,

I’m glad to read your reaction about the files I sent.

Yes, there is much to do in this neighborhood.

I met the students on Friday. The meeting was mainly dedicated to the presentation of the site and discussion about the way they would like to be involved in the projects. They don’t yet know how they want to or can interact, which is normal considering the unknown context. It will be interesting to see later what your students are preparing and we can discuss that if you want or need.

Attached is a file which the team produced as the outcome of our Friday workday. Beforehand, everyone was asked to select three favorite sites and explain why.

The majority chose: OUREBE 3 / CARREFOUR COSA / KAPONO BEACH. On a strategic level, Frida and I were asking ourselves if our contribution is ‘urban acupuncture’ with a recognizable, repetitive spatial intervention (the ‘changing same’) all throughout the neighborhoods / festival locations, or if the team should generate one (iconic) ‘waypoint’ within the overall ‘UdM urban acupuncture’.

We came to the conclusion that focusing on one ‘waypoint’ that is developed a bit more autonomously and architecturally, informed by the festival’s program, might be a stronger contribution, especially as there is a limited number of days / amount of time to perceive, conceptualize, produce.

If we focused on OUREBE 3, for example, this could become the MAISON DES MOTS, us working with textures, textiles, text... in a subtle manner...

What do you think?

Best regards, François

All best, Baerbel

On 14.10.2019, at 15:27, François Duconseille wrote: Dear Baerbel,

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Festival Program See also “The Univers des Mots project”

by Hakim Bah on page 40.

Thursday 14/11/2019 Kaporo pharmacie / yansaneyah 8:00pm Ringo, Stéphanie Chaillou / Odile Sankara Friday 15/11/2019 Kaporo / Terrain 8:00am Parade des artistes 9:00am Spectacle d’ouverture & Cérémonie de lancement Ferme Kaporo / Grand Maquis 10:20am Café Ecolo Studios Kirah 12:00am Causerie, Ringo et Androa Mindre Kolo CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 3:00pm L’Avare en Malinké, Ansoumane Djessira Conde Nongo / Chez Papa Koly 8:00pm Traces, Samira Negrouche / Fatou Cissé 9:15pm Traque, Hakim Bah / Cédric Brossard

Sunday 17/11/2019 Studios Kirah 12:00am Causerie, M-119 Autopsie et Carnet de Voyage CCFG / Médiathèque 3:00pm Jukebox à Conakry, Elise Simonet / Joris Lacoste CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Duel au fouet, Moussa Doumbouya Nongo / Pont 6:30pm Performance, Androa Mindre Kolo Nongo / Maison des jeunes 8:00pm Feutrine, Sandrine Roche / Martin Ambara Nango / Chez Papa Koly 9:50pm Das Dong, Création Collective Labo Elan

Saturday 16/11/2019 Studios Kirah 8:30am Rencontre professionelle 12:00am Causerie, Traque et Das Dong CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Zokwezo, Julien Mabiala Bissila / Silvia Barreiros Kaporo Bomboyah / Arrière cour 8:00pm M-119 Autopsie, Hermine Yollo / Laurent Hatat Ferme Kaporo / Grand Terrain 9:50pm Carnet de Voyage, Lionel Fredoc / Billia Bah Ferme Kaporo / Petit Terrain 11:00pm Les survivants, Lionel Manga / Cie Tangtaaba

Monday 18/11/2019 Studios Kirah 08:30am Atelier réalisation fiction radiophonique, Alexandre Plank / Mathieu Touren 10:00am Lecture Transfrontalier 12:00am Causerie, Feutrine et Trace 3:00pm Jukebox à Conakry, Elise Simonet / Joris Lacoste Kaporo / Jatropha 8:00pm Democratie chez les grenouilles, Jerome Tossavi / Geneviève L. Blais Kaporo 9:50pm Pistes, Penda Diouf / Aristide Tarnagda

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Univers des Mots

Tuesday 19/11/2019 Studios Kirah 8:30am Atelier réalisation fiction radiophonique, Alexandre Plank / Mathieu Touren 10:00am Les inamovibles, Sedjro Houansou 12:00am Causerie, Démocratie chez les grenouilles et Pistes CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Cœur Minéral, Martin Belmar / Jerôme Richer Kaporo pharmacie / Yansaneyah 8:00pm Ringo, Stéphanie Chaillou / Odile Sankara Kaporo Bomboyah / Salle 9:50pm Debout un pied, Stufo Sufo Wednesday 20/11/2019 Studios Kirah 10:00am La Gifle, Omar Aziz 12:00am Causerie, Les survivants et Cœur Minéral CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Cœur Minéral, Martin Belmar / Jerôme Richer Kaporo Bomboyah / Arrière 8:00pm M-119 Autopsie, Hermine Yollo / Laurent Hatat Ferme Kaporo / Grand Terrain 9:50pm Carnet du Voyage, Bilia Bah / Lionel Fredoc Thursday 21/11/2019 Studios Kirah 10:00am Blackcore, Jerôme Richer 12:00am Causerie, L’Avare en Malinké et Duel au Fouet 4:00pm Chat Noir, Geneviève L. Blais 4:00pm La Légende des moustiques, Quevin Moussoki 11:00pm Je suis Sénegaulois, Djibril Goudiaby Kaporo / Jatropha 8:00pm Democratie chez les grenouilles, Jerome Tossavi / Geneviève L. Blais Ferme Kaporo / Garage 9:50pm Traces, Samira Negrouche / Fatou Cissé

Friday 22/11/2019 Studios Kirah 10:00am Guinée Nombril, Thierno Souleymane Barry 12:00am Causerie, Legende des Moustiques et Je suis Sénegaulois CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Bolando, roi des Gitans, Gustave Akakpo / Cédri Brossard 8:00pm Traque, Hakim Bah / Cedric Brossard CCFG / Cour 5:00pm Chat Noir, Geneviève L. Blais 9:50pm Les survivants, Lionel Manga / Cie Tangtaaba Saturday 23/11/2019 CCFG / Salle M. Wandel 4:00pm Bolando, roi des Gitans, Gustave Akakpo / Cédric Brossard Nongo / Maison des jeunes 8:00pm Feutrine, Sandrine Roche / Martin Ambara Kaporo Ferme / Maquis 1 9:50pm L’Avare en Malinké, Ansoumane Djessira Condé Kaporo Ferme 11:00pm Cabaret Ecolo

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Portique Making Of

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Portique Making Of

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Portique Making Of

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Portique Making Of

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Portique Manual Drawings: Anni Dai

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Portique Manual Drawings: Anni Dai

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[applied] Foreign Affairs Beam ˣ 4

90°

70°

Foundations ˣ 4

Column ˣ 4

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Portique Manual Drawings: Anni Dai

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Portique Manual Drawings: Anni Dai

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Portique Public Events

Papa Koli

Portique A light weight structure, made from metal and textile strings is framing the entrances of the theatre spaces of the Festival Univers Des Mots in Conakry’s neighborhoods Nongo, Kipé and Kaporo.

The installative piece emphasizes the threshold between two spatial conditions, the street and the compound, inside and outside. It generates an ad-hoc enclosure and a transgression between the selected locations of the festival, and the surrounding city, between the world of theater and daily urban life.

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[applied] Foreign Affairs

Bar du Bois Petit Terrain

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Portique Public Events

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Ferme Kaporo / Petit Terrain Saturday 16/11/2019 11:00pm Les survivants, Lionel Manga / Cie Tangtaaba

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Nongo / Chez Papa Koly Friday 15/11/2019 8:00pm Traces, Samira Negrouche / Fatou Cissé 9:15pm Traque, Hakim Bah / Cédric Brossard

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Bar du Boir Grand Terrain Friday 15/11/2019 10:20am Café Ecolo

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[applied] Foreign Affairs

Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse Discourse

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Hakim Bah Jean Christophe Lanquetin François Duconseille & Baerbel Mueller Lionel Manga Éric Androa Mindre Kolo & Frida Robles Claudia Bosse Ibrahim Mahama & Frida Robles Bios

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The Univers des Mots project Le projet Univers des Mots

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Since 2012, the Univers des Mots project has been supporting contemporary writing by bringing texts to the stage and promoting contact between artistic projects and audiences.

Every two years, teams of artists from different countries and continents are hosted for a residency in Conakry, Guinea. Univers des Mots supports the authors in their writing process and provides the stage artists with spaces for experimentation. Authors, directors, actors, dancers, circus artists, performers and scenographers work on stage for three weeks, exploring writing through an approach based on sharing and mutual enrichment. Their various projects are presented at the end of the residency.

In 2017, Bilia Bah (the founder of the Univers des Mots) invited me to be the project’s art director. The festival has now grown from being a simple reading event to an art laboratory hosting some ten multidisciplinary projects. It was not long before, due to lack of space, we had to ask the question of where theater could be done. The Franco-Guinean Cultural Center, which generously offered us its premises, was no longer big enough to accommodate all the projects, so we had to start thinking differently, to find other work spaces and invent them if need be. This is why we invited the scenographers to move out into the neighborhoods of Conakry, open other doors, and reach out to new, non-theater-going audiences.

In 2017, in the Minière neighborhood, we began, hesitantly at first, to center our dramaturgical reflection on the role of scenography.

In 2019, we set up bases in Kaporo and Nongo, two lively Conakry districts, occupying various spaces: family courtyards, football pitches, villas, youth clubs, garages, business premises, etc. The artists turned them into areas for discussion, poetry, shouting, laughter, reflection, debate and perspiration, where artistic gestures intersected with spectators’ daily lives.

What I had in mind by inviting European and African scenographers to work in these Conakry neighborhoods was to propose projects inspired by their experiences of particular places.

With this approach, the space is already present: rather than imposing a scenography on an existing site, the idea is to soak up the place’s potential instead. The artists have to adopt new methods, blending their vision with the natural setting that already exists. The choice of workspace is decisive.

The scenographer plays a central role in deciding which space is best suited to which project. By helping to fit a project to a place rather than writing it from outside, he or she becomes an author of the experience.

When I’m asked, “Why are you holding a festival in Conakry neighborhoods?”; I answer, “To get closer to the people”; I answer, “To talk to people nobody talks to”; I answer, “To trigger the unexpected, an unplanned encounter with a random passerby, someone who was just passing through but will take a word, an image, a laugh away with him or her”; I answer, “So as not to wait for spectators to come to us but to go to them instead, sparking their curiosity, inviting ourselves into their streets, their homes, their neighbors’ homes, their workplaces, barging into the traffic, disturbing the usual cacophony, attracting a glance, or two, or three, then getting car horns tooting, motorbike-taxis stopping, headlights flaring, then: “Who is it? What’s going on? What are they up to?”

What on earth are they up to?

What on earth are they up to?

What on earth are they up to?

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Depuis 2012, le projet Univers des Mots défend les écritures contemporaines en favorisant le déploiement du texte sur un plateau et la rencontre de projets artistiques avec des publics.

Tous les deux ans sont accueillies en résidence à Conakry (Guinée) des équipes artistiques de pays et continents différents. Univers des Mots accompagne les auteurs dans leurs processus d’écriture et offre aux artistes de plateau des espaces d’expérimentation. Auteurs, metteurs en scène, comédiens, danseurs, circassiens, performeurs et scénographes profitent de trois semaines de travail au plateau pour explorer une écriture dans une démarche de partage et d’enrichissement mutuel. Ce travail aboutit à une présentation des spectacles issus des chantiers.

En 2017, Bilia Bah (fondateur du projet) m’a proposé d’en prendre la direction artistique. De simple festival de lecture, nous sommes passés à une fabrique accueillant une dizaine de projets artistiques multidisciplinaires.

Confrontés au manque d’espace, s’est posée très vite pour nous la question : ' Où faire du théâtre ? ( En effet, le Centre culturel franco-guinéen qui offrait généreusement ses espaces ne suffisait plus à accueillir tous les projets. Il fallait réfléchir autrement. Trouver d’autres lieux de travail. En inventer. D’où cet appel lancé en direction des scénographes pour investir des quartiers de Conakry, ouvrir d’autres portes, aller vers d’autres publics, ceux qui n’allaient pas au théâtre.

2017, quartier Minière : nous commençons timidement à mettre la question scénographique au centre de la réflexion dramaturgique.

2019 : implantation et ancrage dans deux quartiers populaires de Conakry, Kaporo et Nongo. Là, plusieurs lieux sont investis : des cours familiales, des terrains de foot, des villas, des maisons de jeunes, des garages, des entreprises. Les artistes en font des lieux de parole, de poème, de cri, de rire, de réflexion, de débat, de transpiration, là où le geste artistique rencontre le quotidien du spectateur.

En invitant des scénographes européens et africains à venir travailler dans ces quartiers de Conakry, l’idée pour moi était de proposer des projets nés de la rencontre avec un lieu.

Ici, l’espace existe déjà. Il ne s’agit pas d’implanter une scénographie dans un lieu existant, mais plutôt de se laisser transpercer par ce que propose ce lieu. Ici, l’espace impose à l’artiste une autre approche, sa vision vient se fondre dans ce qui existe déjà, dans le décor naturel. Le choix de l’espace de travail est déterminant. Quel espace pour quel projet ? Ainsi, la place du scénographe devient centrale. Le scénographe en participant à l’inscription, non plutôt à l’écriture du projet dans le dehors, devient auteur à son endroit. À la question : ' Pourquoi faire un festival dans des quartiers de Conakry ? ( , je réponds : ' Se rapprocher des gens. ( Je réponds : ' Aller parler à des gens à qui on ne parlait pas. ( Je réponds : ' Provoquer l’inattendu, la rencontre inattendue avec celui qui vient là par hasard, celui de passage qui repartira avec un mot, une image, un rire... ( Je réponds : ' Ne pas attendre que le spectateur vienne vers nous, mais aller vers lui, titiller sa curiosité, s’inviter dans sa rue, dans sa maison, chez son voisin, dans son lieu de travail, s’incruster dans la circulation, troubler la cacophonie habituelle, attirer un regard, puis deux, puis trois, puis des voitures qui klaxonnent, puis des taxis-motos qui s’arrêtent, puis des phares, puis c’est qui, puis c’est quoi, qu’est-ce qu’ils font ?

Mais qu’est-ce qu’ils font ?

Mais qu’est-ce qu’ils font ?

Mais qu’est-ce qu’ils font ?

Hakim Bah

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

1. Conakry To act as a creator/scenographer in a Conakry neighborhood is to act without a point of view or perspective — to be aware that a point of view is a form of blindness. To create in such a context is, first and foremost, to be permeable. And permeability is incompatible with the filter of a point of view — a focused gaze, sure of its power and legitimacy and connected to our representations. How can one invent and create a narrative and make it part of an environment, without a point of view (but not without an aim)? The context affects us here, soliciting, absorbing, unsettling and blinding— or dazzling— us. “Vision grows distant and the dazzle makes us vulnerable.”1 This image reminds me of something one often sees in Conakry: the headlights of an oncoming car, whose dazzle diffracts our view of the car itself, or a motorbike-taxi winding its way through a hellish night-time tailback, as if spiraling among apparitions, intrusions, energies, dangers and the very stuff of sound.

Vulnerable but precise, we advance. In half-light or darkness, blinded, we are finally able to act. The space, bodies, assemblages and excesses that make up the city, with its powerful and often awe-inspiring energies— infinitely more creative and unusual than our own artistic inspiration — are constantly calling and suggesting…

Here, to see is to touch, endlessly, and to touch is to act, to arrange, to be alert to our surroundings. It’s also to be intensely mindful, self-aware, attentive to (our) imaginary worlds. We’re constantly traversed, physically affected from head to toe. We dominate nothing: we can but try to join the flow of this collective creative power, introducing fictional or performative sidesteps, spaces and possibilities, shiftings and breathings, gestures no matter how small, invisible, ephemeral, momentary...

Theatrical or otherwise, these sidesteps, fictions and collective space-times are not nothing: they splinter the present and open onto other worlds. And because, beyond our artistic certainties and references, we’re caught up in this whirlwind of life, these spaces open up to us in the half-light or dazzle, among the bodies, in the proximity of the crowd, in the noise. Scarcely any silence, scarcely any calm, no light, too much light…

1 Joseph Tonda, L’impérialisme postcolonial, Karthala, Paris 2015.

2 Interview with John Cage, by Michael Kirby and Richard Schechner, Tulane Drama Review vol. 10, n°2, Winter 1965, 2nd edition, Nouvelles scènes collection, Les Presses du réel 2017, p.67.

3 Richard Schechner, Performance, Editions Théâtrales, 2008.

4 Ann Laura Stoler, Imperial Debris, Duke University Press, Durham 2013.

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We can’t hear, we can’t see, or hardly; insufficient physical distance, visual saturation, constant movement and flux, so many signs that they no longer signify; the improvisation of insecurity and uncertainty; vague, unframed spaces: none of the conditions allowing theater to emerge seem to be fulfilled. We become vulnerable; we can sense it. This loss of references is difficult for someone who’s constructed one’s practice with European codes and contexts. But it’s beyond this sense of insecurity that things become interesting.

It’s like a hard shell that has to be pierced. An attentive presence brings insight into where and how we can act with the context. The history of thought —Black Studies in particular, as it’s essentially political and links the violence of the past to aesthetics — can help us deconstruct the unquestioned habits that stem from cultural hegemony, the certainties about what theater is and should be. Artaud walked this path before us and, according to John Cage, de-programmed the very possibility of theater: everything is theater, as long as our sight and hearing are solicited in a collective experience2 — an open and minimalist definition which has the huge advantage of breaking with convention and opening up to the unexpected. Richard Schechner has also long downplayed the importance of Western theater in the global history of performative forms.3 Following their lead, we can invent the multiple conditions for theatrical forms that steer clear of convention and prescription, lucidly reconfiguring rather than rejecting them, choosing and creating rather than slavishly repeating.

Let us be clear: the idea is not to exclude rehearsals or renounce the silence conducive to listening and collective attention; nor is it to perform exclusively in the open air, as the box-theater can also be deconstructed from the inside. The idea is to liberate forms by turning our attention to something that often acts as a constraint in the field of theater — namely the “active ruination”4 of imperial and colonial history, the still-active forms of the past that continue to haunt our practices and lives. The idea is to explore the tools that allow for this reconfiguration of forms by extending the range of possibilities with elements such as half-light, dazzle, improvisation, chaos, the politics of the performative. The idea is to include the Black worlds, the various “Souths,” considering them in all their consistency and no longer invoking the exotic, “otherness,” etc.—mindsets that are still so cumbersome.

The idea is to distance ourselves from the cultural hegemonies so deeply ingrained in European artistic practices. This is the direction in which I am turning my attention and my work; these are the means I am using to explore gestures, bodies, forms and contexts.

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Jean Christophe Lanquetin

1. Conakry Agir en créateurs-scénographes, dans un quartier à Conakry, c’est agir sans point de vue, sans perspective.

C’est comprendre qu’un point de vue est une forme de cécité. Créer ici, c’est avant tout être poreux. Et la porosité ne s’accommode guère de ce filtre, encore de l’ordre de nos représentations, d’un regard porté sur, sûr de sa puissance et de sa légitimité, qu’est le point de vue. Comment créer, imaginer et inscrire des fictions dans un environnement sans point de vue [mais pas sans intention] ? Ici, le contexte agit sur nous. C’est peu dire qu’il nous sollicite. Il nous absorbe. Il nous trouble, nous aveugle... Ou nous éblouit. ' La vision s’éloigne et l’éblouissement nous rend vulnérable ( .1 Cette image me fait penser aux phares d’une voiture qui s’avance vers nous, ce qui arrive souvent à Conakry, et dont les phares diffractent la vision. Ou à un parcours en taximoto au cœur d’un embouteillage dantesque, dans un cheminement non linéaire, la nuit, comme en spirale parmi les apparitions, les intrusions, les énergies, les dangers, la matière sonore.

C’est vulnérables mais précis que nous avançons.

C’est dans le noir, la pénombre, aveuglés, que nous pouvons enfin agir. L’espace, les corps, les assemblages, les débordements qui font l’urbain, les énergies si puissantes, souvent sidérantes, infiniment plus créatrices et singulières que nos idées d’artistes, ne cessent d’appeler, de suggérer. Voir ici, c’est toucher, constamment, et toucher c’est agir, agencer, attentifs à ce qui nous entoure. C’est aussi, intensément, être dans sa pensée, à l’intérieur de soi, à l’écoute de ses — des imaginaires. C’est tout notre corps qui constamment est traversé, travaillé. Nous ne surplombons rien, nous ne pouvons que tenter d’entrer dans le flux de cette puissance créatrice collective dans laquelle nous nous trouvons, en y introduisant des écarts fictifs, performatifs, des espaces, des décalages, des respirations, des possibles, des gestes, même infimes, même de l’ordre de l’invisible ou de l’éphémère, de l’instant. Ces écarts, ces fictions théâtrales ou autres, ces espaces-temps collectifs ne sont pas rien. Ils fissurent le présent, ils ouvrent sur d’autres mondes. Et c’est parce que, au-delà de nos certitudes et repères d’artistes, nous sommes pris dans ce tourbillon de vie que ces espaces s’ouvrent à nous dans la pénombre, éblouis, dans la proximité des corps, de la foule, dans le bruit. Peu de silence, peu de calme, pas de lumière, trop de lumière…

1 Ces mots sont de Joseph Tonda, L’impérialisme postcolonial, Karthala, Paris 2015.

2 Entretien avec John Cage, par Michael Kirby et Richard Schechner, Tulane Drama Review vol10, n°2, hiver 1965, rééd, collection Nouvelles scènes, Les Presses du réel 2017, p.67.

3 Richard Schechner, Performance, Editions théâtrales, 2008.

4 Ann Laura Stoler, Imperial Debris, Duke University Press, Durham 2013.

On n’entend pas, on ne voit pas, mal, faible distance physique, saturation visuelle, mouvement et flux constants, tant de signes que cela ne fait plus signe ; l’improvisation comme insécurité, incertitude ; dans le vague, espaces non cadrés : aucune des conditions permettant au théâtre d’émerger ne semble remplie. Vulnérables nous devenons. Nous le ressentons. Cette perte de repères n’est pas facile pour qui a construit sa pratique avec les codes et dans des contextes européens. Or, c’est au delà de ce sentiment d’insécurité que cela devient intéressant. Comme une carapace qu’il faut percer. Une présence attentive permet d’entrevoir où et comment agir avec le contexte. L’histoire de la pensée — les Black Studies en particulier, parce qu’elles sont d’abord politiques et connectent la violence du passé et les esthétiques — permet de dé-construire les évidences et les habitudes, qui sont d’hégémonie culturelle, les certitudes de ce qu’est le théâtre, de ce qu’il doit être.

Pourtant Artaud est passé par en dé-formatant, comme le dit Cage, la possibilité même du théâtre : tout est théâtre du moment qu’il est fait appel à la vue et à l’ouïe dans une expérience collective.2 Définition minimale, ouverte, qui a l’immense mérite d’éloigner les conventions, d’ouvrir à l’insoupçonné. Et Schechner qui a depuis longtemps relativisé le théâtre occidental dans l’histoire globale des formes performatives.3 On peut, avec et après eux, inventer les conditions plurielles de formes théâtrales qui esquivent les conventions et les assignations, qui, sans les rejeter, les re-configurent lucidement, ne réitèrent pas sans interroger, choisissent, inventent.

Entendons-nous : il ne s’agit pas de ne plus répéter ou de renoncer au silence propice à l’écoute et à l’attention collective ; il ne s’agit pas de ne jouer qu’en plein air car il est aussi possible de déconstruire la boîte scénique de l’intérieur. Il s’agit de déverrouiller les formes en s’intéressant à ce qui, dans le champ théâtral, souvent empêche, à savoir les ' ruines agissantes (4 de l’histoire impériale et coloniale, ces formes du passé, toujours actives, qui hantent nos pratiques et nos vies.

Il s’agit d’explorer les outils qui ouvrent à cette reconfiguration des formes en introduisant par exemple, dans le jeu des possibles, la pénombre, l’éblouissement, l’improvisation, le chaos, les politiques du performatif...

Il s’agit d’inclure les mondes noirs, les ' suds (, en les pensant dans toute leur consistance, sans plus passer par l’exotique, l’autre, etc., ces manières de penser encore si encombrantes. Il s’agit de s’éloigner des hégémonies culturelles dont les pratiques artistiques en Europe, sont imprégnées en profondeur. C’est de ce côté-là que je tourne mon attention et mon travail, c’est par là que j’interroge les gestes, les corps, les formes, les contextes.

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

2. A theoretical account For a scenographer, it is only “natural” for a point of view5 to be an integral part of a stage design. It is indispensable to know the Euclidean geometric tradition as applied to the stage, and the principles of unifocal perspective as the obvious spatial relationship between the theater and the world that creates the character we call a “spectator”. The point of view of this watching-body, the visuality6 that frames figures at a distance, making them subjects in the geometrized world within which the representation occurs, is the basis of a watchingmachine that considers itself universal, key avatars of which are the box-theater and the museum. The space is not site-specific (all box-theaters are alike). What is shown there can be shown according to the (enduring) rules of mimesis or more contemporary performative techniques. But whatever happens there (and God knows there have been multiple experiments), the box-theater decontextualizes what it contains. As it’s constructed on the idea that it’s necessary to break with the world to create a relationship with the spectator, any attempt to connect with a context encounters all manner of resistance. What happens on a stage can perhaps be reproduced on another stage, but this is difficult in reality, if only because the audience is different. Only the intermediary space between stage and city (the theater building) can be socially, culturally and politically rooted.

The context is negated; the geometry of the theater is an imperial steamroller, colonizing the diversity of the world’s spaces.7 Becoming a scenographer inevitably involves a dialogue with the Western history of theater, whether one adheres to it, opposes it, or both, such is the enduring influence of the box-theater as a reference space. For a scenographer, it corresponds to spatial and aesthetic practices and specific techniques: I draw/write the scenery (from the Greek skene and grapho) by arranging elements and signs in a black box (as on a white page), representing the space of the theatrical action by means of something that basically references a setting or tableau. In an assigned (i.e. imposed) co-presence, usually seated face forward in this machine for watching from a distance, an individual becomes a spectator and can see/think through identification with the representation. This conception of theater has long been challenged in many ways — “The moment of clear distinction between what is on stage and who is looking at the stage is perhaps just a strange little anomaly that reappears over the course of time”, according to Fred Moten8 — but endures nonetheless, especially in Europe,

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and has spread worldwide with the arrogance of obviousness. There is a “natural” confidence in the ability of this theatrical design to express, reflect, denounce, criticize… We forget that it is central to the Western imperialist complex and relationship with the world, and that it therefore transmits powerful effects of domination — of its own contradictions, in fact. The gesture of representation, associated here with the theatrical gesture, continues to be marked by what Edward Said9 described as the “violence” of representation: “The act of representing others almost always involves violence to the subject of representation; there is a real contrast between the violence of the act of representing something and the calm exterior of the representation itself, the image (verbal, visual or otherwise) of the subject. (…) There is always this paradoxical contrast between the surface, which seems to be in control, and the process that produces it, which inevitably involves some degree of violence, de-contextualization, miniaturization, etc. The action or process of representation implies control, it implies accumulation, it implies confinement (…). When you display something, you wrench it out of the context of living life and put it in front of an (in this case, European) audience. Because above all, representation involves consumption: representations are put to use in the domestic economy of an imperial society.”10 It so happens that when I “design” a stage in my role as scenographer, the operations mentioned by Said are literally part of my toolbox: removing, distancing, cutting out, suppressing, miniaturizing, removing… But such familiar manual/visual operations, which cut out and frame to construct the aesthetic and (supposedly) political coherence of a theatrical gesture, also imply an operation of censorship. The terms are always used in connection with their manual/visual dimension, ignoring their inherent violence, which is pervasive — I’m thinking of the way we appropriate images, words and spaces, removing them from their context to reconfigure them and give them the coherence of a script constructed within the specific space of the page, its signs all mastered, controlled and viewed from a distance.11 5 That of both author and spectator.

6 Attention that depends on sight alone to comprehend one’s surroundings.

7 Much has been written on how geometry and the point of view constrain and colonize; see esp. Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze.

8 Fred Moten, interview with Marielle Pelissero, in Théâtre Public n°233, 2019, p.9.

9 And, more recently, Ariela Aisha Azoulay, Potential History, Unlearning Imperialism, Verso 2019.

10 Edward Said, In the Shadow of the West, interview with Jonathan Crary and Phil Mariant, 1985.

11 Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien, les arts de faire, Folio Essais, Gallimard 1990, pp.198 and foll.

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Jean Christophe Lanquetin

2. Un récit théorique Pour un scénographe, il est ' naturel ( que le point de vue5 soit constitutif du dispositif scénique. Il est indispensable de connaître la tradition géométrique euclidienne appliquée à la scène, les principes de la perspective unifocale comme relation spatiale évidente entre le théâtre et le monde qui fabrique cette figure appelée spectateur. Son point de vue, corps-regardant, visualité6, qui cadre à distance un homme fait sujet dans un monde géométrisé à l’intérieur duquel se déploie une représentation, est au fondement d’une machine à regarder qui se pense universelle, dont la boîte scénique théâtrale, mais aussi le musée sont des avatars majeurs.

Cet espace n’est pas situé [toutes les boites scéniques se ressemblent]. Ce qui y est représenté peut l’être selon les règles de la mimésis [qui perdurent encore aujourd’hui] ou selon des jeux plus contemporains.

Mais quoi que l’on fasse, et dieu sait si les tentatives ont été et sont multiples, la boîte scénique théâtrale décontextualise ce que l’on y inscrit. Construite sur l’idée que c’est en se séparant du monde que la relation devient possible, toute tentative de rapprochement avec un contexte se heurte à de multiples résistances. Si ce qui se passe sur une scène peut être reproductible sur une autre scène, ce déplacement dans les faits reste difficile parce que le public, lui change. Seul l’espace intermédiaire entre la scène et la ville [le bâtiment du théâtre] opère un ancrage, social, culturel, politique. Le contexte est nié, la géométrie théâtrale se fait rouleau compresseur impérial qui colonise la diversité des espaces dans le monde.7 Devenir scénographe, c’est inévitablement entrer en dialogue avec cette histoire occidentale du théâtre, soit en s’y inscrivant, soit en s’y confrontant, le plus souvent les deux tant la boîte scénique reste un espace de référence. Pour un scénographie, cela correspond à des pratiques spatiales et esthétiques, des techniques bien précises : je dessine/écris la scène [skene grafein — étymologie grecque] en disposant des éléments, des signes, dans une boîte noire [comme sur une page blanche], afin de représenter l’espace de l’action théâtrale via ce qui renvoie fondamentalement à un décor ou à un tableau. C’est ainsi que, dans une coprésence assignée, c’est-à-dire imposée, généralement assis de face, dans cette machine à voir à distance, l’individu devient spectateur et peut voir-penser en s’identifiant via la représentation. Or, même si cette conception du théâtre — ' Ce moment de démarcation claire entre ce qui est sur la scène et ce qui regarde la scène n’est peut-être qu’une étrange petite anomalie qui resurgit au fil du temps ( dit Fred Moten8 — est bousculée de multiples manières et depuis longtemps, elle persiste, en particulier en Europe, et se répand à travers le monde avec l’arrogance d’une évidence.

Il y a une confiance ' naturelle ( dans la capacité de ce dispositif scénique à dire, refléter, à dénoncer, à critiquer. On en oublie qu’il est au coeur du complexe impérial occidental, de cette relation avec le monde et qu’il est ainsi porteur d’effets puissants de domination, de ses propres contradictions en somme. Le geste de représentation, associé ici au geste scénique, reste marqué par ce que Saïd9 appelle la violence de la représentation : ' L’acte de représenter implique presque toujours une violence envers le sujet de la représentation ; il y a un réel contraste entre la violence de l’acte de représenter et le calme intérieur de la représentation elle-même, l’image (verbale, visuelle, ou autre) du sujet. (…) Il y a toujours ce contraste paradoxal entre la surface, qui semble être sous contrôle, et le processus qui la produit, celle-ci impliquant inévitablement quelques degrés de violence, de décontextualisation, de miniaturisation, etc. L’action ou le processus de représentation implique du contrôle, de l’accumulation, du confinement (…). Quand on expose quelque chose, on l’arrache de son contexte de vie et on le met devant un public (en l’occurence, européen). Parce que par dessus tout, la représentation implique une consomption : les représentations sont mises en place pour être utilisées dans l’économie domestique d’une société impériale . (10 Il se trouve que lorsque, scénographe, je ' dessine ( une scène, les opérations citées par Saïd font littéralement partie de ma boîte à outils : retirer, éloigner, découper, supprimer, miniaturiser, effacer… Mais ces choix sont aussi une opération implicite de censure en même temps que cette si familière opération plastique qui découpe, cadre pour construire la cohérence esthétique et, pense-t-on, politique d’un geste théâtral. On utilise constamment ces termes dans leur dimension plastique sans faire le lien avec la violence qu’ils contiennent.

Et cela va loin, je pense ici à la manière dont on s’approprie les images, les mots, les espaces, dont on les sépare de leur contexte pour les re-configurer, leur donner la cohérence d’une écriture bâtie dans un espace propre, une page, où tous les signes sont maîtrisés, contrôlés, et regardés à distance.11 5 Point de vue de l’auteur aussi bien que du spectateur.

6 Ou attention via la seule vision, comme mode de compréhension de ce qui nous entoure.

7 Beaucoup a été écrit sur la manière dont la géométrie et le point de vue sont un carcan qui colonise, en particulier ici Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze.

8 Fred Moten, entretien avec Marielle Pelissero, in Théâtre Public n°233, 2019, p.9.

9 Ou, plus récemment Ariela Aisha Azoulay, Potential History, Unlearning Imperialism, Verso 2019.

10 Edward Saïd, Dans l’ombre de l’Occident, entretien avec Jonathan Crary et Phil Mariant, 1985, Payot 2011 pour la version française.

11 Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien, les arts de faire, Folio essais, Gallimard 1990, pp.198 et suiv.

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

These various operations are passionately defended as components of the sovereign freedom of creation. To behave otherwise, to undermine the authoritarian nature of the script and its space, is to become invisible, inaudible. Proposals go unanswered — it’s as if one cannot be absolutely free when one is attentive to context.

I grew up and discovered the theater in the 1970s-80s. At that time in Europe, and especially in Strasbourg, theatrical and dramatic forms were open to context and relevant to the city, and challenged representation.12 So my early emotions were linked to narratives taking place in streets, palaces and warehouses, blending reality and fiction in myriad ways. I found this freedom again later, when working in non-European contexts: firstly in Syria,13 then on the African continent (since the 2000s on)14 where, as a scenographer, artist and teacher, I have been involved in numerous projects with artists, especially choreographers. It soon became apparent — and was pointed out to me — that importing my European scenic practices, with their inherent history, clashed with the strong desire to break free from the consequences, vestiges and ruins of this violent shared past and its lingering financial, political and aesthetic phantoms. At first, I understood little of the dynamics that operated in the places I worked in; my references were at best inappropriate, at worst condescending and authoritarian. This came as a revelation, heightening my questioning of my own practice and of the stage itself — its modes of production, its founding principles, its dramatizations, the insidious way in which it reinstates the imperial violence of history…

So through trial and error, I adjusted my references. I was pretty much on my own at first, at least in France, but (sometimes with a sense of having switched sides), accompanied by the artists I generally collaborate with who are well aware of the sources of a violence they

12 From 1977 to 1983, the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, directed at that time by Jean-Pierre Vincent, was an important place of experimentation with theatrical forms that deconstructed representation, within a wide range of contexts.

13 From 1994 to 1997, then again in 2004, I taught at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, and created the stage designs for three plays.

14 Mainly Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Senegal, but also Mozambique, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and more recently Mali and Guinea.

15 Edouard Glissant, Poétique de la relation, Poétique III, NRF, Gallimard, 1990, p.47.

16 Fred Moten, ibid.

17 And on the other hand, how can we take possession of a box-theater, whenever possible, by trying to force its walls outward? It’s a machine whose codes have to be mastered.

18 The Eyala Pena traveling theater, founded in collaboration with the Cercle Kapsiki collective of artists in Douala, Cameroon, as part of a project conducted by Barbara Boulay, director of the Un-Excursus theater company.

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endure in many different ways. I also learned that the essence of my work is not so much a relationship to the stage as it is a contextual relationship to the places in which I find myself creating. “Sharing in the life of the world,” to borrow Édouard Glissant’s expression;15 forming a part of it, together with the people I meet and love; imagining immersive narratives with them, in spaces that are different but not set apart.16 How, in practical terms, can a theatrical gesture establish a direct relationship between co-presences (actor/ spectator, inhabitant/performer, inhabitant/spectator, etc.)? How can it play with the continuity/discontinuity between the stage and its wings and the rest of the world? What kind of active, effective, political relationship can be established with the context in which one is operating? The stage — classical or otherwise — has an essential quality: it allows for distancing. This interests the artists I work with in many different ways.

Even when a staging is directly connected to the city and its inhabitants, this (spatial, in this case) distancing is central to our research: how can we use fiction and performance to open up a space in which to apprehend the world we live in?17 Scenography as a contextual exploration of the conditions for doing, saying and seeing, and of the possible forms of address and attention.

This research also finds the spaces and resources it needs in the gaps between theater and performance, between dance, visual arts and installation.

A first project conducted along these lines was a traveling theater created in Douala at the turn of the 2000s.18 As this collective project had no theatrical premises, we decided to build a theater of our own — one that could be assembled and disassembled in less than a day. This first initiative led to a series of projects, variations between a “stage” and its context. Along the way, I became distanced from most of the theater artists of my generation in France… because contextual projects are political in a different way, through their use of site-specific aesthetic gestures and their selfextraction from the ambiguities of representational theater, which many of those artists hold in such high esteem. For my part, I try to (re)discover a place in the world through artistic exploration of elements distrusted

by Western theater: darkness, noise, the various things the box-theater was designed to counteract by cutting itself off from the “chaos” of the world in order to speak of it.

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Toutes ces opérations sont ardemment revendiquées comme faisant partie de la souveraine liberté du créateur.

Dès que l’on agit autrement, dès qu’on affaiblit cette part autoritaire de l’écriture et de son espace, on devient vite invisible, inaudible. Les propositions ne trouvent guère écho. Comme si l’on ne pouvait pas à la fois être souverainement libre et attentif aux contextes.

J’ai grandi et découvert le théâtre dans les années 70-80, à un moment où, en Europe et en particulier à Strasbourg où je vivais, les formes scéniques, les dramaturgies s’ouvraient sur les contextes, s’inscrivaient dans la ville, questionnaient la représentation.12 Mes émotions premières sont ainsi liées à des fictions inscrites dans des rues, des palais, des hangars qui entremêlaient de mille manières du réel et de la fiction.

Plus tard, c’est en travaillant dans des contextes non européens que j’ai trouvé cette liberté. D’abord en Syrie13, puis à partir des années 2000 sur le continent africain.14 J’y ai participé à nombre de projets aux côtés d’artistes, de chorégraphes en particulier, en tant que scénographe, artiste et enseignant. Assez vite, il est devenu évident — on me l’a signifié aussi — qu’importer mes habitudes européennes d’espace théâtral et l’histoire dont elles sont porteuses, entrait en conflit avec une volonté intense d’éloignement des séquelles, restes, ruines et fantômes économiques, politiques et esthétiques qui continuent à façonner ce violent passé commun. Au début, je ne comprenais pas grand-chose aux dynamiques à l’oeuvre dans les lieux où j’étais amené à intervenir, mes repères étaient au mieux déplacés, au pire condescendants et autoritaires. Cette situation a agi comme un révélateur, accentuant mes interrogations sur ma pratique, la scène, ses modes de production, ses fondements et ses dramaturgies, la manière dont, insidieusement, elle ré-installe la violence impériale de l’histoire. J’ai dû déplacer, en tâtonnant, mes repères,

12 Entre 1977 et 1983, le Théâtre National de Strasbourg, dirigé alors par Jean-Pierre Vincent, a été un lieu d’expérimentation majeur de formes théâtrales déconstruisant la représentation et s’inscrivant dans les contextes les plus divers.

13 entre 1994 et 1997, puis en 2004 j’ai enseigné à l’Institut Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Damas, et réalisé les scénographies de 3 spectacles de théâtre.

14 principalement le Cameroun, la RdCongo, l’Afrique du Sud, le Sénégal, mais aussi le Mozambique, le Kenya, le Burkina Faso, et plus récemment le Mali et la Guinée.

15 en référence à Edouard Glissant, Poétique de la relation, Poétique III, nrf, Gallimard, 1990, p.47.

16 Fred Moten, ibid.

17 Et à l’inverse, comment s’emparer, affronter, une boite scénique lorsqu’on en a la possibilité, en essayant d’en pousser les murs. Car c’est une machine dont il faut connaître les codes.

18 Il s’agit du Théâtre Itinérant d’Eyala Pena, construit avec le Cercle Kapsiki collectif d’artistes visuels à Douala, Cameroun, lors d’un projet porté par la metteure en scène Barbara Boulay / Cie Un Excursus.

Jean Christophe Lanquetin

relativement seul au départ [du moins en France], accompagné cependant par les artistes avec qui je collaborais [avec parfois le sentiment d’avoir changé de camp] et qui eux savaient précisément où se situaient les violences pour les avoir subies de multiples manières. J’ai aussi appris que l’essentiel dans mon travail, n’est pas tant une relation à la scène qu’une relation située aux lieux où, présent, je créé. ' Partager la vie du monde (, pour reprendre les termes de Glissant15, m’y inscrire aux côtés des gens que je rencontre et que j’aime, imaginer avec eux des fictions en immersion, dans des espaces différents mais sans séparation.16 Comment concrètement un geste scénique peut-il établir une relation directe des co-présences [acteursspectateurs, habitants-performeurs, habitants-spectateurs, etc.], un jeu avec la continuité/rupture entre la scène, ses coulisses et le monde, quelle possible relation agissante, active, politique avec le contexte dans lequel l’on s’inscrit ? Le dispositif de la scène, y compris classique, présente en effet une qualité essentielle, à savoir d’ouvrir sur une mise à distance. Et cela intéresse de multiples manières les artistes avec qui je collabore.

Même lorsqu’il s’agit d’un dispositif en lien direct avec la ville et ses habitants, cette mise à distance, ici spatiale, est au coeur de la recherche : comment ouvrir un espace, entre fiction et performance pour penser le monde où l’on vit ?17 La scénographie comme exploration située des conditions du faire, du dire et du voir, des formes d’adresse et d’attention. Une recherche qui trouve aussi ses espaces et ses dispositifs dans les intervalles — entre théâtre et performance, entre danse, arts visuels et installation.

Un premier projet mené ainsi est un théâtre itinérant construit au tournant des années 2000 à Douala.18 Pour les besoins de ce projet collectif, nous n’avions pas de lieu théâtral. Nous avons donc choisi d’en construire un, montable et démontable en moins d’une journée. Ce moment fondateur a initié une série de projets qui sont autant de variations entre une ' ‘scène ( et le contexte dans lequel elle s’inscrit. Ce faisant, s’est creusé un décalage avec la plupart des artistes de théâtre de ma génération en France. Car travailler avec les contextes touche au politique autrement, via des gestes esthétiques situés, en s’éloignant des ambiguïtés de la scène représentationnelle, parée par nombre d’entre eux de si grandes vertus. Pour ma part, je tente ainsi de [re]trouver une place dans ce monde en explorant artistiquement ce dont la scène occidentale se méfie, d’où le jeu avec l’obscur, le bruit, tout ce contre quoi la boîte scénique à été inventée, en se coupant du soidisant chaos du monde pour mieux en parler.

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

3. Intervening in the city The issues illustrated here from my personal experience are central to a research program called Play>Urban, set up in 2011 by the Scenography Workshop at the HEAR (Haute École des Arts du Rhin) in Strasbourg, in which students, artists and researchers come together to conduct experimental collective projects in various worldwide contexts and then publish a corresponding journal.19 This is what took us to Conakry.

When envisaging contextual “stagings” here, the issue of the European stage tradition is secondary20 because scenography is also about the four W’s: Where, Who, When and Why. This allows for more room for maneuver and greater attentiveness to the places themselves through exploration of the material conditions of any potential theater venue, the conditions of the audience experience, of speech… Who is speaking? From where, and to whom? Every part of the city of Conakry has scenic potential! Attentive to the urban sphere, we wandered the city and imagined the possibilities of this powerfully narrative environment: villas-châteaux (the huge private houses that have sprung up everywhere), bar terraces, damp-stained walls, intense energies... and all around, the sea. The gaps are so obvious here that any fiction is bound to be social and political. The festival we were involved in was held in the Kipé-Kaporo neighborhood, on a large, “informal” nine-hectare plot in its center, used for all kinds of activities: car repairs, bars and clubs, football pitches, a farm… The plot forms an arena — a place brimming with life, brought into existence by the local people. Its theatricality is both powerful and fragile, as everything is precarious. As soon as we began to think of intervening artistically there, by becoming part of the scene and sparking a variation of intensity (with the consent of those who live and work there), the potential of this place where art and life are often entwined became instantly obvious. And what could we use to achieve our ends? The elements available: earth and mountains of trash, including all the salt-faded items washed up by the sea: clothing, plastic, cans, tires, dolls and toys... and backhoe loaders, and mangrove wood, and colored plastic chairs. And we had the daylight, the powerful night lights that play with color and shadow, the headlights of moving cars, the energy and goodwill of the people, the presences and possibilities… An abundance of spaces imbued with fantasy and beauty.

Ideas too — visible all around us. The fantasy worlds of the artists and people who shape the city, there for us to see in the organization of everyday life.

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By observing and exploring these fantasy worlds together, we could grasp the substance, density and potential of the quotidian. For a scenographer, this means observing, choosing locations, introducing gesture and presence, moving and arranging, adding the new and the unexpected. Assembling (rather than simply reproducing) elements and meaning on an arena, rather than a stage... To quote Deleuze and Guattari on the subject of assembling: “The nomadism of those (…) who no longer even imitate anything? They only assemble. (…) an outside with which to assemble in heterogeneity, rather than a world to reproduce.”21 Our starting point for a circus show on this large plot was the plastic chairs that are omnipresent here and in most other places. In Conakry they come in many colors, with a simple but comfortable design that allows the sitters to forget their bodies and focus on what’s happening around them. The seamless integration of our show into this terrain was mostly due to the fact that it came as no surprise: we’d been rehearsing on the site for three weeks, while the inhabitants looked on.

They were interested and they showed it. On the day of the performance, admittedly, the esplanade was distinguished by the presence of technical equipment, but the space only became theatrical when the performance began — when the circus performers began juggling with the piles of chairs, arranging them in a circle for the audience. This scenographic idea22 allowed a shift to occur and an arena to emerge. Other, similarly inspired scenographic contributions from the students created a subtle connection between the performance, the dramaturgy, the location and the bodies. Some sequences made repeated use of the gap between the actual site in all its ordinary reality and the scenographic effects that kept changing the spectators’ perspective, creating a constant to-and-from between reality and fiction. This movement recurred throughout the dramatic action. As a spectator, I perceived the place for what it was (or at least, for what I understood it to be), and at the same time I saw it as the place to which the narrative took it.

19 Play>Urban (playurban.hear.fr/), a research program developed with François Duconseille at the HEAR since 2011, provides a space for urban artistic experimentation by students, artists and researchers in numerous worldwide urban contexts (Johannesburg, Strasbourg, Medellin, Seoul, and Mayotte in the future). Play>Urban works in tandem with Scénos Urbaines—transdisciplinary residencies in big-city neighborhoods worldwide. See urbanscenos.org.

20 In Conakry, however, it is still the absolute reference for most theater directors, unfamiliar with other ways of fitting into the urban space in view of the enduring reflex of the frontal stage. Nonetheless, there is a perceptible need for change.

21 Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux, Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1980, p.35.

22 From Gabrielle Ritz and Anton Grancoin, students at La Cambre [Brussels], and HEAR respectively.

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Jean Christophe Lanquetin

3. Intervenir dans la ville Les enjeux ici évoqués à travers mon parcours personnel sont au coeur du programme de recherche Play >Urban, mis en place en 2011 par l’Atelier de Scénographie à la HEAR / Strasbourg. Nous menons ainsi avec des étudiants, des artistes, des chercheurs, un ensemble d’actions expérimentales collectives dans divers contextes de par le monde et publions une revue.19 C’est ce projet qui nous a conduits à Conakry.

Travailler des ' scènes’ ( contextuelles ? La question de la tradition scénographique européenne se fait ici secondaire.20 Car la scénographie, ce sont aussi quatre W : Where, Who, When, Why : Où, [pour] Qui, Quand, Pourquoi. Ce qui ouvre sur des formes d’inscription plus larges et attentives aux lieux réels, qui interrogent les conditions matérielles de tout espace en devenir de théâtre, les conditions de l’expérience du public, de l’adresse… Qui parle ? D’où l’on parle ? À qui l’on s’adresse ? Ainsi, à Conakry, tout espace dans la ville se fait potentiellement scénique. C’est notre manière d’être attentif à l’urbain : nous déambulons et imaginons des possibles dans un environnement d’une grande puissance narrative. Les ' villas-châteaux (, ces énormes maisons particulières qui poussent un peu partout, les terrasses des bars, l’humidité qui colore les murs, l’intensité des énergies. La mer de tous côtés.

La fiction est sociale, politique, tant les écarts se lisent.

Le festival auquel nous participons se déroule à KipéKaporo. Au cœur du quartier, un grand terrain, une étendue ' informelle ( de 9 hectares. S’y déploient de multiples activités : réparation de voitures, bars et boîtes, terrains de football. Une ferme aussi. Cette étendue est un plateau, un espace façonné par les gens, chargé de vie. La théâtralité y est puissante et fragile, car tout est précaire. Il suffit d’imaginer y intervenir en tant qu’artiste en s’y glissant, y inscrire une variation d’intensité avec le consentement de ceux qui y vivent et travaillent pour que s’ouvrent les potentialités de ce lieu qui multiplie les porosités entre art et vie. Pour cela, de quoi disposons-nous ? De ce qui est là : de terre, de montagnes de déchets, dont tous ceux qui recouvrent littéralement la mer sont lavés par le sel : habits, plastiques, bidons, pneus, poupées, jouets, sièges…

Mais aussi de tractopelles, de bois de mangrove, des sièges en plastique colorés. De la lumière du jour, de la force des éclairages nocturnes qui jouent avec la couleur et la pénombre. De phares de voitures en mouvement. De l’énergie et de la bienveillance des gens, de présences, de possibles. D’espaces, à foison, chargés d’imaginaire et de beauté. De pensée, et la pensée cela se voit. D’imaginaires, ceux des artistes et ceux des gens qui façonnent la ville autour de nous, ce qui se lit partout dans les agencements ordinaires.

En observant et creusant ces imaginaires ensemble, se devinent l’épaisseur, la densité, les potentialités du

quotidien. Le travail scénographique consiste alors à regarder, à choisir des lieux et à y inscrire des gestes, des présences, à déplacer, à disposer, à introduire des éléments nouveaux, singuliers. À agencer des éléments, du sens plutôt qu’à reproduire, sur un plateau plutôt que sur une scène. Agencer : ' Le nomadisme de ceux (…) qui n’imitent plus rien ? Ils agencent seulement. (…) Agencer dans l’hétérogène, plutôt qu’un monde à reproduire ( pour reprendre les termes de Deleuze et Guattari.21 Pour un spectacle de cirque sur le grand terrain, le point de départ, ce sont ces chaises en plastique que l’on trouve partout, ici comme ailleurs. À Conakry, elles sont de toutes les couleurs et si leur design est banal, elles n’en sont pas moins confortables. Leur assise permet d’oublier son corps et ouvre vers une attention à ce qui se passe autour de nous. L’inscription en douceur du spectacle sur le grand terrain vient du fait qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une surprise. Nous répétons pendant trois semaines sur place. Les gens sont témoins du processus.

Cela les intéresse et ils le font savoir. Le jour de la représentation, l’esplanade est certes singularisée par la présence d’éléments techniques. Mais l’espace ne devient scénique qu’à partir du moment où la performance a commencé : les circassiens jonglent avec les chaises empilées et les installent en cercle pour le public. Cette proposition des scénographes22 est ce qui permet le glissement, l’apparition d’un plateau. Dans le même ordre d’idées, d’autres projets scénographiques créés par les étudiants construisaient une relation fine entre la pièce, la dramaturgie, le lieu et les corps. Certaines séquences des spectacles jouaient de manière répétitive de cet entre-deux entre le lieu dans toute sa concrétude, son ordinaire, et les devenirs d’un dispositif modifiant régulièrement le point de vue des spectateurs, activant ainsi de constants glissements entre réel et fiction. Ce mouvement se réitérait dans le temps de l’action théâtrale. Ainsi, spectateur, je lisais le lieu pour ce qu’il était [ce que j’en comprenais, du moins] et simultanément je lisais l’endroit où la fiction l’emmenait.

19 Play>Urban [playurban.hear.fr/], programme de recherche que nous développons avec François Duconseille à la HEAR depuis 2011, est un espace d’expérimentations d’artistes dans la ville, avec des étudiants, des artistes, des chercheurs, dans de multiples contextes urbains de par le monde [Johannesburg, Strasbourg, Medellin, Séoul, et à venir, Mayotte].

Play>Urban fonctionne en binôme avec les Scénos Urbaines, un ensemble de résidences pluridisciplinaires dans des quartiers de grandes villes. Voir urbanscenos.org.

20 Pourtant, à Conakry, elle restait la référence chez la plupart des metteurs en scène peu au fait des manières de s’inscrire dans l’espace urbain tant le réflexe reste la scène frontale. Le besoin de faire bouger les lignes se devine cependant.

21 Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Mille Plateaux, Éditions de Minuit, Paris1980, p.35.

22 Gabrielle Ritz et Anton Grancoin, respectivement étudiants à La Cambre [Bruxelles] et à la HEAR.

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

We tend to overlook the possibilities of the everyday, their materiality and their subversive dimension, and the potential for creation in the urban space is still underexplored. This assertion might seem strange in view of the current plethora of proposals. But rather than just setting up a stage somewhere, I mean getting forms, intensities, rhythms, words, narratives, visions, hallucinations and concrete poetry to resonate with a context that is, in itself, a spiral of energies. The wealth of the everyday with its constantly creative intensity and its connections to the social, the marginal, the multitude and the authorities — the fabric of our lives — is an infinitely prospective and subversive area. This potential is linked to the theatricality of an urban space seen as an infrastructure of people,23 to performative forms that are not exclusively “visual,” to the artificial at the heart of the everyday, to the texture of interpersonal relationships. Diffuse and omnipresent theatricality (described by Jean Genet as “inconsistent”, which doesn’t mean invisible — Genet was referring to elusive hyper-visibility and beauty).24 A permeable, omnipresent theatricality that evades and eludes us, opening the way for non-scenic (but highly theatrical) approaches.

So each new project is site-specific and immersive. To start from the site itself, we must first and foremost be present, attentive, near. This nearness requires sensitivity and attention, but also represents an aesthetic and political reversal. The notions of immersion and nearness might seem incompatible with those of perspective and distance, but it’s actually more complex than that: it’s partly immersion at a distance, partly immersed distance. These variations can be explored through play. Here, it is useful to look to the classical experience of theater, where the perspective allowing for thought is inextricably associated with distance.25 These games and shifts between distance and immersion, free of the constraints of the past, can inspire scenographic gestures. It seems to me that scenic gestures find their resonance(s) by means of games, gaps, and variations in immersion. An arena appears — a singular space-time in which fiction can 23 AbdouMaliq Simone, People as Infrastructure, in Play>Urban 1, HEAR Strasbourg, 2016. A. Simone’s writings have greatly nourished my understanding of today’s urban dynamics.

24 Jean Genet, Un captif amoureux, Folio Gallimard, Paris 1995 (about the Black Panthers).

25 “Nothing is visible without distance”, Poussin, cited

by Jean-Christophe Bailly, Le champ mimétique, Le Seuil, Paris 2005.

26 Olivier Neveux, Contre le théâtre politique, La Fabrique éditions, 2019, pp.248 and foll.

27 Fred Moten, ibid.

28 J. Rancière, Le partage du sensible, La Fabrique éditions, Paris 2000.

29 Edouard Glissant, ibid, p. 33.

30 Created at the Godown Arts Center, Nairobi 2005, then on tour.

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emerge with no need for intermediaries or separations.

The participants’ bodies naturally exchange their usual status for that of performers. The space-time of fiction comes up against the world, blends into it, breaks away from it, attaches itself to objects.26 And in the copresence of the gesture we watch this happen, with no need for another image or copy (although they are also possible). We are no longer limited to the action of “going to the theater;” we can also glance up, look around, stop what we’re doing because a space has opened up here, right next to us, where we usually live our lives without taking much notice of our surroundings.

Through haptic seeing and touching, we assemble and invent the physical elements, narratives, lights and sounds by looking around, walking, sitting or standing wherever we like. In this way, anything is possible: forms are not necessarily invisible or conceptual. This recalls festive or ritual forms and events, a kind of “difference without separation”27 that has always existed.

I no longer have much of a “point of view,” and I’m determined not to force myself to have one. Instead, I create a spatial action — a permeable arrangement allowing everyone sharing in the theatrical moment to contribute their own experience. The idea is a shared sensibility, a diversity of shared and individual sensory experiences.28 It’s not about my personal point of view materialized in a theatrical space-time, but rather something inexpressible that belongs to everyone and is necessarily opaque, not worth trying to explain — it has to remain opaque out of respect for each individual’s singularity: “The wanderer dives into the opacities of that share of the world to which he has access.”29 It’s about being free to experience something and live with that experience. It’s about fantasy. Opacity as a form of attention. In Shift/Centre, a choreographed performance

by Opiyo Okach,30 the dancers, singer and audience are together on a stage in a park, gymnasium, station concourse… The preparatory work for this performance focused on creating conditions for the spectators’ presence that would encourage their attentiveness.

Audience capacity was limited to ensure that the space remained fluid, leaving people free to interact with the dancers. The gaze was structured (but not imposed) by transparent tarpaulins, while mobile lighting indicated points of particular intensity. During the performances, some spectators followed the dancers while others stood at an attentive distance; still others preferred to sit, for a close-up sensory experience and the pleasure of immersive physical proximity, while others danced, briefly, in the semi-darkness. The space was designed to extend the range of perspectives — close or distant, stationary or moving. It also allowed spectators not to see everything, while creating a shared experience, a “me” and an “us”: the transparent tarpaulins created

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On oublie trop vite les possibles inscrits dans l’ordinaire, leurs matérialités, leur dimension de subversion. Les potentialités de la création dans l’espace urbain restent peu explorées. Il peut paraître étrange d’affirmer cela au vu du foisonnement actuel des propositions. Je ne parle pas ici de poser une scène quelque part, mais de faire entrer en résonance des formes, des intensités, des rythmes, des paroles, des récits, des visions, des hallucinations, de la poésie concrète avec un contexte qui est lui-même une spirale d’énergies. Le foisonnement de l’ordinaire comme intensité créative continue, en lien avec le social, les marges, la multitude, les pouvoirs, ce qui constitue la matière de nos vies, est un espace prospectif et subversif sans fond. Ces potentialités renvoient à la théâtralité d’un urbain, ici pensé comme infrastructure de personnes23, aux formes non exclusivement ) visuelles ( du performatif, à l’artificiel inscrit au cœur du banal, à la texture des relations entre les gens. Théâtralité diffuse, omniprésente — inconsistante, dit Jean Genet, ce qui ne veut pas dire invisible — Genet parle d’hyper-visibilité furtive, de beauté.24 Une théâtralité qui échappe, qui fuit, poreuse et partout présente, ouvrant le champ à des tactiques non scéniques, pourtant très théâtrales.

Ainsi donc une théâtralité qui s’ouvre, à chaque nouveau projet, au milieu, en immersion. Comment commencer par le milieu ? En étant là, d’abord présent.

Attentif. Auprès de. Il y a autour de cet au milieu à la fois une position sensible, à l’écoute, mais aussi un renversement esthétique et politique. Si l’immersion auprès de semble antinomique du point de vue de la distance, c’est en fait plus complexe : quelque part entre immersion à distance et distance immergée. Ces variations se travaillent par le jeu. Ici est utile l’expérience classique du théâtre dans laquelle l’expérience du regard qui permet de penser est indissolublement liée à la distance.25 Ces jeux, ces déplacements entre distance et immersion, dégagés des carcans du passé, ouvrent sur des gestes scénographiques. C’est bien dans ces jeux, ces variations, cette immersion, ces écarts que le geste scénique me semble pouvoir trouver sa — ses — résonance(s). Un plateau s’ouvre, un espace 23 AbdouMaliq Simone, People as Infrastructure, in Play>Urban 1, trad J.C. Lanquetin et Dominique Malaquais, HEAR Strasbourg, 2016. Les textes d’A. Simone ont beaucoup nourri ma compréhension des dynamiques urbaines actuelles.

24 Jean Genet, Un captif amoureux, Folio Gallimard, Paris 1995. À propos des Black Panthers.

25 ' Il ne se crée point de visible sans distance (, Le Poussin cité par Jean-Christophe Bailly, Le champ mimétique, Le Seuil, Paris 2005.

26 Olivier Neveux, Contre le théâtre politique, La Fabrique éditions, 2019, pp.248 et suiv.

27 Fred Moten, ibid.

28 J. Rancière, Le partage du sensible, La Fabrique éditions, Paris 2000.

29 Edouard Glissant, ibid, p.33.

30 Créée au Godown Arts Center, Nairobi 2005, puis en tournée.

Jean Christophe Lanquetin

temps singulier où émerge du fictif qui se confronte sans intermédiaire et sans séparation. Les corps glissent d’un statut ordinaire à un statut performé-eur. L’espace temps de la fiction se confronte au monde, s’y dilue, s’en sépare, se colle sur les objets du monde.26 Et dans la co-présence du geste, nous assistons à cela, sans plus nécessairement passer par une image seconde, une copie, mais cela peut arriver aussi. On n’est plus dans le seul temps du : ' je me déplace pour aller au théâtre (, mais aussi dans ' je lève un œil, je tourne la tête, j’interromps ce que je fais, car là, juste à côté de moi, un espace s’ouvre, juste là où d’habitude je vis ma vie sans trop être attentif à ce qui m’entoure (. C’est notre toucher-voir, haptique qui va assembler et jouer imaginairement avec, qui va assembler les éléments physiques présents, les récits, les lumières et les sons, en tournant la tête, en marchant, en s’asseyant ou se tenant debout là où bon me semble. Ainsi, tout est possible. Les formes ne sont pas forcément invisibles ou conceptuelles. Cela renvoie au festif, aux formes rituelles, aux événements… Cette ' différence sans séparation (27 a toujours existé.

De ' point de vue (, je n’en ai plus guère. Et je vais m’attacher à ne pas en forcer un. Je pose plutôt un acte d’espace, un agencement poreux, permettant à chacune des personnes présentes au sein du moment théâtral, d’y inscrire son expérience. Il s’agit de sensible partagé, de diversité des expériences sensibles, communes et singulières.28 Il ne s’agit pas de mon point de vue matérialisé dans un espace-temps scénique, mais de quelque chose qui appartient à chacun, indicible, opaque, forcément opaque, qu’il n’est même pas la peine de chercher à expliciter, qui doit le rester par respect pour la singularité de chacun : ' L’errant plonge aux opacités de la part du monde auquel il accède (.29 Il s’agit de la liberté de faire expérience et de vivre avec cette expérience. Il s’agit d’imaginaire. D’opacité comme une forme d’attention. Dans Shift/Centre, une pièce chorégraphique d’Opiyo Okach30, les danseurs, la chanteuse et le public sont ensemble, sur scène [salle vide, laissée visible], dans un parc, un gymnase, un hall de gare. Le travail a surtout consisté à façonner les conditions de cette présence située du public, constitutive de son attention. La jauge était limitée afin que l’espace reste fluide. Les gens étaient libres d’interagir avec les danseurs. Des bâches structuraient le regard sans pour autant l’imposer car transparentes, dans une lumière mouvante qui indiquait les points d’intensité.

Lors des présentations, certains spectateurs suivaient les danseurs. D’autres se tenaient à l’écart, attentifs mais de loin. Ou encore assis, privilégiant une expérience proche, tactile, le plaisir de s’immerger dans une proximité des corps. Voire dansaient brièvement dans la pénombre. L’espace amplifiait volontairement les choix de perception, proche ou lointaine, statique

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Scenography: a Contextual Practice?

La scénographie : une pratique contextuelle ?

a mirror-like reflection, a means of guessing what was going on outside the more immediate field of attention of the shared danced narrative. What was happening in the vicinity, at a distance, could therefore be present without disturbing the main chosen experience, which the spectators were free to leave whenever they chose, to take a look elsewhere, thereby experiencing a sense of “us” in the multitude of interchangeable perspectives.

George Bush Senior’s question31 —“Are you with us or against us?”— divided the world into two opposing sides… and prompted Opiyo Okach to work with dance as closely as possible to the audience. My personal revelation came from Thierry de Duve’s discussion of the work of Dan Graham: “The political no longer lies in the act of emitting but in that of receiving, is no longer on the side of activity but on that of passivity, is no longer in action but in passion […] to act is to see, to see is to choose, to choose is to judge. The fact that we have become onlookers does not dispense us from deciding what we look at. And the fact that we are also observed onlookers obliges us to decide, case by case, what to show and when and why to show it. Judging and exposing oneself to judgement, with no certainty on either side, is perhaps where the political now lies.”32 Fiction springs from context. For a project in Medellin called Fictions ordinaire,33 the inhabitants of the Sinai neighborhood (who settled there after the civil war) recounted their own “creation of the world”: how they’d built the neighborhood over the years and wanted to stay there. Using their stories as a starting point, we arranged a number of gestures on a street: theater, video, sculpture, installation, urban walkabout, participatory projects, sound design, with everyone conducting their own experiments. The neighborhood brought us together and was the factor that connected the artists’ gestures. The proposals and media were ultimately interwoven and interacted to create a show which pervaded rather than interrupted the everyday uses of the space. People were free to come whenever they liked. The decision was not ours; it was how the people chose to be attentive. We were made welcome and did as we pleased, with the goodwill and support of the neighborhood. The people went about their business with us among them. It was stimulating for everyone, with constant interactions between reality and fiction. Life didn’t come to a standstill. The inhabitants accompanied us as witnesses; they were not spectators.

For the 2019 edition of the Les Praticables festival in Bamako,34 in courtyards and on streets, we focused on the conditions for collective listening and attention conducive to a shared experience. How could we favor

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a quality of attention in a place where true silence is almost impossible? But silence also comes from the ability to concentrate, to forget what’s around us; it occurs in attentive bodies. So we turned our attention to the issue of comfortable seating,35 using the chairs woven from bright colored thread that are found all over the city. We had dozens of them made, changing the height of the seats; once assembled into rows they took on an organic form, resembling a flexible, nonauthoritarian assignation rather than a barrier dividing the space. Everyone could choose their own angle, turn their seat and position their body in a comfort conducive to concentration, without being subjected to the kind of fixedness that forces everyone to look in the same direction. The point of view was no longer primarily a theatrical convention but became each individual’s experience, shared with others. This physical freedom created a harmony between narrative and experience; the simple gesture of transforming an ordinary object into an extra-quotidian resource made sense to everyone.

The contexts shaped the spatial and dramaturgical conditions for staging. We experienced this permeability — the disappearance of boundaries — by becoming part of the space, but also by the simple fact of moving from place to place as we roamed the streets and courtyards of Kipé Kaporo and Nongo in Conakry and elsewhere, going from one proposal to another.

The classical conventions of space diminished without quite disappearing, discreetly creating a decolonial effect: the contexts de-formatted the theatrical proposals, making it possible to become part of “the great unknown before us, which requires us to signify the whole, namely the word of all the peoples.”36 Were we still spectators in those spaces, in the large arena?

When further considering the forms of co-presence and attention that come to the fore when a narrative gesture becomes part of the everyday, are we not rather in the role of witnesses? Attentive, involved and immersed witnesses.

My thanks to Leyla Rabih and Dominique Malaquais for their proofreading and comments.

31 Just after the first Gulf War. 32 Thierry de Duve, “Dan Graham et la critique de l’autonomie artistique”, in Dan Graham, Œuvres 1965-2000, exhibition catalogue, Paris Musées, Paris, 2001, p.63 33 A project co-organized with theater director Catherine Boskowitz in Medellin, then in Fort-de-France and Port-au-Prince in 2017, with Columbian, Martinican and Haitian artists, and students from the HEAR. 34 A festival founded by actor and director Lamine Diarra in the Bamako Koura neighborhood in 2017. The scenographic team was made up of Clara Walter, Marc Vallès, Ikhyeon Park and Elie Vendrand Maillet, former students in the HEAR scenography workshop.

35 Clara Walter, Siriman Dembele and me.

36 Edouard Glissant, ibid p.97.

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ou en mouvement. Il autorisait à ne pas tout voir, tout en faisant exister le commun de l’expérience, le ' moi ( et le ' nous ( : pour cela, les bâches transparentes faisaient aussi reflet, miroir. Elles permettaient de deviner ce qu’il se passait hors du champ d’attention plus local d’une fiction dansée et partagée. Ainsi, ce qui se jouait, autour, plus loin, était présent sans perturber l’expérience principale choisie, dont on pouvait à tout moment s’extraire pour aller voir ailleurs, autrement, retrouvant ainsi un ' nous ( dans la multitude des points de vue interchangeables.

Une citation de G. Bush père31: ' Are you with us or with the enemy? (, divisant le monde en deux camps, a poussé Opiyo Okach à travailler la danse au cœur du public. Pour ma part, le déclic est venu via Thierry de Duve, parlant du travail de Dan Graham : ' Ce n’est plus dans l’instance de l’émission mais dans celle de la réception, ce n’est plus sur le versant de l’activité mais sur celui de la passivité, ce n’est plus dans l’action mais dans la passion […], que se loge le politique. […] Agir c’est voir, voir c’est choisir et choisir c’est juger. Que nous soyons devenus des regardeurs ne nous dispense pas de décider sur quoi faire porter notre regard. Que nous soyons en outre des regardeurs regardés nous impose aussi de décider que montrer, quand, pourquoi, au coup par coup.

Juger et s’exposer au jugement sans certitude de part ni d’autre, c’est peut-être cela le politique aujourd’hui . (32 C’est du contexte que naît la fiction : dans Fictions Ordinaires,33 à Medellin, les habitants du quartier Sinaï [installés là suite à la guerre civile] racontaient leur création du monde : comment, au fil des années, ils ont bâti cet endroit et comment ils souhaitent y rester.

Partant de leurs récits, nous avons agencé dans une rue un ensemble de gestes : théâtre, vidéo, sculpture, installation, déambulation urbaine, projets participatifs, création sonore. Chacun menait ses expérimentations.

Le quartier nous rassemblait, c’est lui qui constituait le lien entre les gestes d’artistes. Au final, les propositions et les médiums s’entrelaçaient, se répondaient pour constituer un spectacle. Ce moment n’interrompait pas les usages ordinaires de l’espace, il les infectait. Venait qui voulait, quand il le souhaitait.

Nous n’avons pas décidé de cela, c’est ainsi que les gens ont choisi d’être attentifs. Nous étions accueillis, nous faisions ce que nous voulions avec la bienveillance et le soutien du quartier. Les gens faisaient leur vie avec nous parmi eux. C’était stimulant pour tout le monde, les résonances réalité - fiction étaient constantes, la vie ne s’arrêtait pas. Les gens étaient témoins, nous accompagnaient. Ils n’étaient pas spectateurs.

Pour Les Praticables, un festival à Bamako en 2019,34 dans les cours, dans la rue, nous nous sommes focalisés sur les conditions d’une écoute et d’une attention collectives, propices à une expérience en commun. Comment rendre possible une qualité

Jean Christophe Lanquetin

d’attention, surtout dans un endroit où un réel silence est quasi impossible. Or le silence vient aussi de la capacité à se concentrer, à oublier ce qui nous entoure, il est dans les corps attentifs. Nous avons travaillé pour cela avec des chaises, des assises confortables.35 Ces chaises, tressées de fils de couleurs vives, existent partout dans la ville. En modifiant la hauteur de leur assise, nous en avons fait construire des dizaines qui, assemblées, forment un gradin qui se glisse dans les parcelles, en prenant une forme organique. Une assignation souple, non autoritaire. Le gradin n’est plus une barre qui coupe l’espace. Chacun peut choisir son angle, tourner son siège, inscrire son corps dans le confort propice à sa concentration sans avoir à subir une fixité qui oblige à une direction ' commune ( du regard. Le point de vue n’est plus d’abord convention théâtrale, mais le vécu de chacun, ensemble. Le jeu entre dramaturgie et expérience s’équilibre. La liberté est au plus proche des corps. La simplicité de ce geste de détournement d’un objet ordinaire en dispositif extra-quotidien parle à tous.

Ce sont les contextes qui façonnent les conditions spatiales, dramaturgiques, du geste de plateau. Cette porosité, cette disparition des limites, nous en faisons l’expérience via les conditions d’une inscription dans l’espace, mais aussi par le simple fait de circuler d’un endroit à un autre dans les rues et les cours de Kipé Kaporo et Nongo à Conakry ou ailleurs pour assister à des propositions. Les conventions classiques de l’espace s’estompent, sans pour autant disparaître, et cela produit, à bas bruit, sans se dire comme tel, du dé-colonial : les contextes dé-formatent les propositions scéniques, ouvrant par là-même sur la possibilité de s’inscrire dans ' l’énorme inconnu, devant nous, qui requiert de signifier la totalité, c’est-à-dire la parole de tous les peuples (.36 Au milieu de ces espaces, dans le grand terrain, sommes-nous toujours spectateurs ?

Réfléchissant plus avant aux formes de co-présence et d’attention qui prévalent à partir du moment où un geste de fiction s’inscrit au cœur de l’ordinaire, ne sommesnous pas plutôt clairement dans une position de témoin ?

Un devenir témoin, attentif, impliqué, immergé.

Merci à Leyla Rabih et Dominique Malaquais pour leurs relectures et commentaires.

31 Cela se passait juste après la première guerre du golfe.

32 Thierry de Duve, ' Dan Graham et la critique de l’autonomie artistique (, in Dan Graham, Œuvres 19652000, cat exposition Paris Musées, Paris, 2001, p.63 33 Un projet co-réalisé avec Catherine Boskowitz, metteur en scène, à Medellin, puis à Fort-de-France et Port-au-Prince en 2017, avec des artistes colombiens, martiniquais, haïtiens et des étudiants de la HEAR. 34 Un festival fondé par Lamine Diarra, comédien et metteur en scène, en 2017 dans le quartier de Bamako Koura. L’équipe scénographique était constituée de Clara Walter, Marc Vallès, Ikhyeon Park et Elie Vendrand Maillet, tous anciens étudiants de l’Atelier Scénographie de la HEAR. 35 Clara Walter, Siriman Dembele et moi-même.

36 Édouard Glissant, ibid p.97.

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You have to set the map aside and get onto the terrain Mettre les cartes de côté et descendre sur le terrain

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BM: I would like to start our conversation by reflecting on the notion of scale. And I would like to start by quoting Hannah Le Roux: “Scale is not a limited concept, it overcomes borders” and “In reality, scale is collapsing, making the nano into the global, and beyond.” I am interested in understanding how you perceive the world around you, as a person, but also — and that is hardly separable — as a creative, a scenographer, an “urban actor.”

FD: There are all these scales from the nano to the global, but the one that matters most to me as a scenographer and an “urban actor” is the very first one, called Scale 1:1, the scale of the human body. To tell you the truth, I don’t know any others directly. I can imagine them and admire representations of them — impressive scientific images of the infinitely small or the infinitely large — but I always return to my own scale as a six-foottall biped. I use the information my body produces, and my awareness of what a spectator feels, to design the spaces and the actions to be projected into them… like a base, a common ground that can produce imaginings of the other scales that have inspired human stories since the dawn of time.

Scenographers and architects have scale models too — scale tools, pathways to reality. The joy of using them taps into our childhoods, when our bodies were small and we loved to play with objects smaller than ourselves, to enlarge the world beyond our reach.

A scale model is a magical object whose power needs to be controlled, whose limits need to be understood; you have to know how to play with it, how to project yourself into it without losing a sense of real scale — the one that will make sense when the project is eventually presented to an audience. What’s fascinating about the scale model is that it allows us to invent possible worlds beyond our reach. For the time being, I’ll stick with the real world I live in, with the ground beneath my feet in the cities I walk around in, looking to meet other bodies on the same scale as my own.

BM: Very interesting to hear how you seem to be embodied on a 1:1 scale. I truly perceive the world around me in shifting scales, permanently zooming in and zooming out. This is not predominantly a bodily experience, obviously, more one of the mind and emotion, and imagination. It is very much my lived experience and of our time, we are hardly ever 100% in just one place for one moment. It is all so connected and interdependent and other places are inscribed in me, not just as memory, but rather actively with me all the time — the same with people. And this mental, emotional, spatial and temporal connectivity also manifests itself through a simultaneity of scales. Furthermore, we are all passionate about and influenced by maps, satellite images and drone shots. When I navigated our neighborhoods in Conakry for example, being very much in the space and moment with all of my senses, in between, these satellite images popped up where you could see Conakry as a shape, extended out into the ocean at one end and the surrounding landscapes at the other, and how the city and its hinterlands and riverbeds and vegetation, and the mangroves meet in a beautiful, meandering way. Or I am reminded of working at the Ebute Metta Railway compound in Mainland Lagos, and how you are standing on the railroad tracks, and you know that they are leading to Kano, deep into the continent, and that opens up other dimensions or perceptions of space and place.

This actually leads me to what I would like to talk about next: the concept of punctual urban intervening, which could be summarized under the notion of urban acupuncture, which has been one of the central motifs to collaborate on in Conakry, a strategy we are both very used to.

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BM : Je voudrais commencer notre conversation en abordant la notion d’échelle et en citant Hannah Le Roux : ' L’échelle n’est pas un concept limité, elle déborde des frontières. ( Elle écrit aussi : ' En réalité, l’échelle s’effondre, transformant le nano en global, et au-delà. ( Cela m’intéresserait de comprendre quelle perception tu as du monde autour de toi, en tant que personne, mais aussi, car c’est difficilement séparable, en tant que créatif, scénographe et ' acteur urbain (.

FD : Il y a en effet toutes ces échelles du nano au global, mais celle qui m‘importe en tant que scénographe et ' acteur urbain ( est la première de toute, celle qu‘on appelle l‘échelle 1, celle du corps humain. À vrai dire, je n‘en connais pas directement d‘autres, je peux les imaginer, en apprécier les représentations, ces images impressionnantes de l‘infiniment petit ou grand produites par la science, mais celle à laquelle je reviens constamment est celle de ma position de bipède d‘un mètre quatre-vingts. C‘est à partir des informations que mon corps produit et en connaissance de ce que le spectateur peut ressentir lui aussi que je pense les espaces et les actions à y projeter, comme une base, un terrain commun d‘où naissent les imaginaires vers les autres échelles, celles qui nourrissent les histoires humaines depuis la nuit des temps.

Par ailleurs, pour le scénographe et l‘architecte, il y a la maquette, cet outil d‘échelles, passage vers le réel. On en connaît les joies qui puisent dans l‘enfance, quand nos corps étaient petits et que nous aimions jouer avec des objets plus petits que nous pour agrandir le monde que l‘on ne pouvait encore atteindre. La maquette est un objet magique dont il faut maîtriser les pouvoirs et connaître les limites, il faut savoir en jouer, savoir s‘y projeter sans y perdre le sens de notre échelle réelle, celle qui finalement fera sens quand le projet sera présenté au public. La maquette est fascinante en ce qu‘elle permet d‘inventer des mondes possibles, hors de portée. Pour l‘heure, j‘en resterai au monde réel que j‘habite, à mes pieds sur le sol des villes que j‘arpente, à la rencontre de corps à mon échelle.

BM : C’est intéressant de voir comment pour toi, l’échelle 1:1 s’incarne littéralement, prend corps. Pour ma part, je vois vraiment le monde autour de moi à travers des échelles mouvantes, zoomant constamment en avant ou en arrière. Ce n’est pas une expérience physique, davantage une expérience mentale, émotionnelle, qui se joue au niveau de l’imaginaire.

Cela vient en grande partie de mon expérience vécue, à notre époque, on est rarement à 100% dans un même lieu ou un même temps. Tout se connecte dans une interdépendance, d’autres lieux sont inscrits en moi, pas seulement comme des mémoires, mais présents de manière active tout le temps, des lieux mais aussi des personnes. Et cette connectivité mentale, émotionnelle, spatiale et temporelle se manifeste aussi à travers une simultanéité d’échelles. De plus, nous sommes tous influencés, voire fascinés par les cartes, les images par satellite ou prises par des drones. Ainsi, à Conakry, alors que je naviguais dans notre quartier, reliée à travers tous mes sens à ces lieux et ces moments, il y avait en même temps ces images par satellite qui surgissaient, à travers lesquelles je voyais Conakry comme une forme s’étendant dans l’océan d’un côté et cernée par la campagne environnante de l’autre. Je voyais comment la ville, ses hinterlands, les lits de ses rivières, la végétation et les mangroves formaient des mosaïques sinueuses et magnifiques. Ou lorsque je travaillais dans l’enceinte de la gare Ebute Metta à Lagos Terre… J’avais devant moi ces rails qui, je le savais, allaient jusqu’à Kano, au cœur du continent, ouvrant d’autres dimensions, d’autres perceptions de l’espace, des lieux…

Et cela m’amène à la suite : le concept d’une intervention urbaine ponctuelle, qui pourrait se résumer à une stratégie d’acupuncture urbaine, l’une des principales démarches au cœur des différentes collaborations mises en œuvre à Conakry, une notion qui nous est à tous les deux familière…

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You have to set the map aside and get onto the terrain Mettre les cartes de côté et descendre sur le terrain

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FD: The question of the body present in a space — on its own scale but mentally traversed by numerous other dimensions — interests me above all, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in other scales. If you consider the way I prepared the Conakry residency for the non-Guinean guests, the first stage was to produce a document with satellite views of a selection of potential sites. With these images and maps, the various participants (directors, scenographers, students…) could project themselves into the neighborhood’s urban spaces and see where their project could best be “brought to earth”, and the festival organizers could imagine the spatial and temporal connections and flows between projects. In a sense, this locating on a map is comparable to the practice of acupuncture, which identifies the points on the body where needles should be put to stimulate the flow of vital energy. But, as Michel de Certeau reminds us in L‘Invention du Quotidien1, if the city can be seen from above — a strategic viewpoint — it’s from below, in contact with the ground, that one can understand how the inhabitants appropriate it and tactically use it, and envisage an intervention. So you have to set the map aside and get onto the terrain to meet the people who can help you introduce your actions, by their side, with full awareness of local issues.

Such people are essential to the organicity of an artistic action in an urban context. In Conakry, our “magic pass” was a certain Souleyman Bah, one of the people occupying the Kaporo farm, a huge plot in the center of the neighborhood used for all kinds of “informal” activities (craft workshops, garages, bars, stores, hairdressers, car washers, building supply dealers…).

In what seemed to be a chaotic and inaccessible space, he quickly helped us find the interlocutors our projects needed: the owners of premises, construction material suppliers, craft workers able to make various objects…

Our meeting with him helped us take many of our artistic proposals to this plot of land, which gradually became the festival’s epicenter and, in return, generated considerable economic benefits for the inhabitants.

We can also think about the impact of occasional urban interventions of this kind. We’ve held several Urban Scénos events in remote neighborhoods whose inhabitants have no access to the kind of artistic and cultural activity aimed at wealthier audiences. The residencies are limited in time but they have a tangible impact on the people, their perception of the place they live in is lastingly altered. This stems primarily from the fact that we live and work in the neighborhood and present our projects to the inhabitants. To use the metaphor of acupuncture again, a simple action in one place can have significantly wider effects, if it’s well prepared and performed.

1 Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien, 1. arts de faire, chapter VII, Marches dans la ville, pp.139-142, ed Folio essais

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FD : Si la question du corps présent dans un espace à son échelle, bien que traversé mentalement par un grand nombre d‘autres dimensions, est celle qui m‘intéresse en premier, le passage par d‘autres échelles n‘en est pas moins écarté. Si l‘on reprend la façon dont j‘ai préparé la résidence de Conakry pour les invités non guinéens, la première étape a été de produire un document présentant une sélection de sites potentiels en vue satellitaire. Ces images et ces plans ont permis à chaque intervenant (metteurs en scène, scénographes, étudiants...) de se projeter dans les espaces urbains du quartier et d‘envisager le lieu qui serait le plus propice à ' l‘atterrissage ( de leur projet. Elles permettaient aussi aux organisateurs du festival de penser les relations et les circulations d‘un projet à l‘autre, tant d‘un point de vue spatial que temporel. En un sens, ce repérage sur la carte peut renvoyer de façon analogique à la pratique de l‘acupuncture qui cherche où poser les aiguilles sur un corps pour y faire circuler au mieux les flux vitaux.

Mais comme le rappelle Michel de Certeau dans L‘invention du quotidien1, si la ville peut se voir du dessus, point de vue stratégique, c‘est d‘en bas, au contact du sol, qu‘on en comprend les modes d‘appropriation par les habitants, les usages tactiques, et que l‘on peut envisager d‘y intervenir. Il s‘agit alors de quitter la carte et de descendre sur le territoire pour y rencontrer les personnes susceptibles d‘aider à inscrire à leurs côtés certains gestes avec une connaissance précise des enjeux locaux. Ces personnes sont des clés indispensables à produire l‘organicité d‘un acte artistique dans un contexte urbain. À Conakry, ce sésame s‘est appelé Souleyman Bah, représentant de la population occupant la ferme Kaporo, vaste terrain au centre du quartier accueillant de façon informelle de nombreuses activités (ateliers d‘artisans, garages, débits de boisson, boutiques, coiffeurs, laveurs de voitures, marchands de matériaux de construction…).

Grâce à lui, de nombreux projets ont pu trouver rapidement dans cet espace a priori chaotique et difficilement pénétrable les interlocuteurs nécessaires à leur mise en œuvre, qu‘il s‘agisse des propriétaires de lieux, des fournisseurs de matériaux ou des artisans pour la réalisation de différents objets. Cette rencontre a permis d‘inscrire une partie importante des propositions artistiques sur ce territoire, devenu progressivement l‘épicentre du festival, générant en contrepartie des retombées économiques non négligeables pour les habitants.

Nous pouvons aussi réfléchir sur l‘impact de ce type d‘interventions urbaines ponctuelles. Les Scénos Urbaines se sont à de nombreuses reprises tenues dans des quartiers relégués dont la population est mise à l‘écart d‘activités artistiques et culturelles destinées à des publics mieux lotis. Même si ces résidences sont limitées dans le temps, l‘impact sur la population est sensible, l‘image que les habitants ont de leur lieu de vie en est transformée de façon durable. Cela est notamment dû au fait de vivre et travailler dans le quartier et d‘y présenter à la fin les projets aux habitants.

En reprenant la métaphore de l‘acupuncture, on voit qu‘une action modeste en un lieu peut produire des effets significatifs selon la façon dont elle est pensée et réalisée.

1 Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien, 1. arts de faire, chapitre VII, Marches dans la ville, p.139-142, ed Folio essais

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You have to set the map aside and get onto the terrain Mettre les cartes de côté et descendre sur le terrain

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BM: I try to apply the “acupuncturing the city” strategy in almost all my projects when operating in urban environments, at least conceptually. My earliest project of this kind was Listening Kumasi (2000-2002), an imaginary project for the city of Kumasi in Ghana, based on the idea of creating spaces for communication, spread throughout the city like acupuncture points, and related to each other by invisible traces. The project was an attempt to read the city from within, to intervene actively, and to imagine space-generating strategies.

It was based on the concept of capturing a variety of Kumasi´s spatial, cultural, and social characteristics through a subjective selection of striking urban points and fields. They were read as micro-systems of characteristic energy levels with catalytic effects on the urban fabric, and were interpreted as dormant potentials.

Subsequently, I read these as sites for intervention and conceptualized and designed participatory, programmatic, physical, and acoustic spaces — all with the aim of creating radiating and healing effects on their respective contexts, as well as on the entire city.

Then, five years later, Faustin Linyekula, as an artist, and I, as an architect, identified our mutual interest in the conception of decentralized spaces for art and cultural life, and Faustin invited me to Kisangani, his hometown in the DR Congo, to begin collaborating on “acupuncturing” it. The vision for his Studios Kabako was to create a network of spaces dispersed throughout the city, as opposed to just one monolithic centre. We understood each of these waypoints (or potential hubs) as infrastructure, as material body, as social space, and as gesture and paradigm for the community in which it would be embedded, and from which it would be radiating. Three sites and situations were selected over a longer period of time. We conceptualized and designed spatial interventions and architectures with a specific programmatic focus, responding to the needs of Studios Kabako and the characteristics of the respective neighborhood of Kisangani. The overall question was: “Is it possible to dream of impact on the scale of a city?” (Linyekula) and the main objectives were decentralization and working from within.

With the Univers des Mots, I was excited to experience a decentralized theater festival in a city such as Conakry, in regard to the acupuncture strategy, connectivity, contextual approaches and visibility, to observe how directors and scenographers would work from within, and especially how the actual people, the citizens, would be involved and react to what was going on in their direct environment, both in the process of making, and as audiences of pieces and performances.

On an artistic level, I was truly fascinated by how some of these locations were worked with, and by the power and beauty of minimal gestures: the conscious arrangement of smaller objects, or light, additions to highlight an existing spatial situation, or subtractions to focus and concentrate the attention on somewhere specific, or on the actors, performers. And I was curious — and this refers to your Michel de Certeau citation — how these would include or exclude the performative of the daily lives around. We were also critically questioning if the engagement and the radiating effects we wished for were truly happening, or if we could just claim them. How alien, how invasive are you? How responsive, how contextually can you operate? And what does contextual mean then, if not provocation and surprise? On top of that, the protagonists involved were Conakry-based artists, artists from other West African or African countries, and Europeans, all with different starting points and aspirations.

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BM : J’essaie d’appliquer la stratégie de l’acupuncture urbaine à presque tous mes projets lorsqu’ils s’inscrivent dans un environnement urbain, au moins au niveau conceptuel. Mon premier projet de ce type fut en 2000-2002 Listening Kumasi (Écouter Kumasi), un projet imaginaire pour la ville de Kumasi au Ghana, autour de la création d’espaces de communication, disséminés à travers la ville comme des points d’acupuncture et reliés entre eux par des traces invisibles. Il s’agissait d’une tentative pour lire la ville depuis l’intérieur, avec des interventions directes, en imaginant des stratégies génératrices d’espaces.

Le projet s’appuyait sur l’analyse de diverses caractéristiques spatiales, culturelles et sociales de Kumasi à travers une sélection subjective de points et champs urbains remarquables. Nous lisions ces derniers comme des microsystèmes avec des niveaux d’énergie spécifiques et ayant des effets catalyseurs sur le tissu urbain, les interprétant comme des potentiels dormants. J’en ai donc fait des sites d’interventions et j’ai conceptualisé et élaboré des espaces participatifs, programmatiques, physiques et acoustiques — avec toujours en tête l’idée de générer des effets bénéfiques, rayonnant sur les contextes respectifs, et plus largement sur toute la ville. Cinq ans plus tard, Faustin Linyekula, artiste, et moi, architecte, avons partagé notre intérêt mutuel pour la conception d’espaces culturels et artistiques décentralisés. Faustin m’a invitée à Kisangani, la ville où il a grandi en République Démocratique du Congo, afin d’y mettre en œuvre cette stratégie d’acupuncture. Sa vision pour ses Studios Kabako était de créer non pas un centre monolithique, mais au contraire un réseau d’espaces dispersés à travers la ville. Nous envisagions chacun de ces points de repère (ou de ces hubs potentiels) comme une infrastructure, un corps physique, un espace de sociabilisation, un geste ou un paradigme pour la communauté d’où ces repères seraient issus et à partir de laquelle ils pourraient rayonner. Trois sites furent identifiés au bout d’un certain temps. Nous avons imaginé pour chacun des interventions spatiales et architecturales sous un angle programmatique spécifique, en réponse aux besoins des Studios Kabako et aux caractéristiques des différents voisinages. Pour Faustin, la question essentielle était : ' Est-il possible de rêver d’une action à l’échelle d’une ville ? (, avec comme principaux objectifs la décentralisation et une action de l’intérieur.

Ce qui m’intéressait avec Univers des Mots, c’était cette expérience d’un festival de théâtre décentralisé dans une ville telle que Conakry, toujours en lien avec les concepts d’acupuncture, de connectivité, d’approches contextuelles et de visibilité. Observer comment les metteurs en scène et les scénographes pourraient travailler de l’intérieur et comment les gens, les habitants et les citoyens, seraient impliqués et réagiraient aux propositions faites dans leur environnement immédiat, à la fois au cour du processus de production, mais aussi en tant que spectateurs des pièces et des performances. D’un point de vue artistique, j’étais fascinée de voir comment certains sites étaient investis et transformés par la beauté de gestes très simples : une disposition pensée de petits objets, de la lumière, certains ajouts pour mettre en valeur une situation spatiale existante ou au contraire l’épure pour capter et concentrer l’attention sur quelque chose de spécifique, ou sur des acteurs, des performeurs. J’étais curieuse — et nous revenons à la citation de Michel de Certeau — de voir comment tout ceci inclurait ou exclurait la performance autour, celle des vies quotidiennes. Il s’agissait aussi de poser un regard critique sur notre engagement, de voir si les rayonnements escomptés étaient vraiment réels, pas juste de l’ordre de la revendication. Jusqu’où étions-nous étrangers ? Jusqu’à quel point nos actions pouvaientelles être invasives ? Quelle en était la pertinence, notamment en dialogue avec le contexte ? Et qu’est-ce qu’une approche contextuelle signifie, au-delà de la simple provocation ou de la surprise ? En outre, les acteurs impliqués venaient à la fois de Conakry, d’Afrique de l’Ouest, d’autres pays du continent et d’Europe, avec donc des points de départ et des désirs différents.

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FD: This questioning is essential as it touches on the ethical foundations of this kind of project and of the Urban Scénos in particular. In this respect, our participation in the Univers des Mots festival doesn’t match our usual way of connecting our projects to urban contexts and their inhabitants. Although, to my delight, plenty of the performances generated the kind of aesthetic fascination you mentioned, we fell far short of our goals due to a production context beyond our control: in fact, we were invited by an association called “La Muse,” which supports the Univers des Mots project, to help them set up a theater festival, traditionally held in dedicated indoor venues, in a Conakry neighborhood. Our role was to help them plan how to take theatrical productions into people’s homes and courtyards and into the streets and squares of the urban environment, but the initial project was significantly scaled back due to production difficulties and differences of opinion regarding contextual approaches that arose between us and the organizers.

So, to answer your questions, I’d rather refer to another project, more similar to what you experienced in Kisangani with Faustin. It has been one of the most successful Urban Scénos events thus far, both artistically and in terms of the connection with the local people at the residency location. It was conducted in 2012-2013, in Dakar’s Ouakam neighborhood, with the choreographer Andréya Ouamba and his dance company, Premier Temps. One of the fundamental aspects you have mentioned about the Kisangani project is the time that was devoted to developing and setting up a project in that kind of context — and, I’d say, in every context. It’s a period of time that can’t be compressed, during which you make contact with the places and the people, develop a sensitive understanding of how things work there, take the time for meetings and exchanges, acquire mutual awareness of what’s important and what everyone wants. It’s a time for establishing complicity and mutual respect because, as I said before, successful human connection is central to the artistic success of the kind of project we both have in mind… to such an extent that for the first Scénos residency in the New Bell neighborhood in Douala, when we didn’t know how this new experiment

would turn out, we didn’t ask our guest artists to produce anything — we just wanted them to spend three weeks living in the neighborhood alongside the inhabitants who were their hosts. In the end, all the artists participated in a three-day festival that brought together the vast majority of the local people, who found it really hard to understand why so many foreign artists were suddenly taking such a generous interest in their neighborhood! We allowed ourselves this long preparatory period in Dakar: the project was set up over three years, with a number of visits but also some intense awareness-raising among the locals by the Premier Temps dance company, whose members were living on-site. So when the artists arrived in Ouakam for a one-month residency, the people were ready for them, in a sense. After that, the fact of having lived in the neighborhood and mingling with the inhabitants facilitated the acceptance of a project that would otherwise have been seen as “alien.” Another principle of Urban Scénos is to create direct economic benefits for the local community, not only by living, eating and drinking on site, but also by hiring inhabitants and associations to help the artists and make objects (accessories, scenic elements, etc.), which all helps to foster true integration. For Dakar, we asked the Bitcaves, an Amsterdam-based graphic design collective, to help us communicate around the time of the event. Rather than producing conventional communication tools, they decided to create small newspaper ads featuring the festival program and a presentation of each artist, while also providing an “advertising” space for local social and economic players, with a layout design combining the artistic projects and everyday local life.

Ouakam Annonces was printed in 10,000 copies on the presses of a local daily called Soleil. It was widely distributed a few days before the festival opened. This communication tool was, above all, a wonderful way of bringing the artists together with the spectators who, in many ways, became participants in the project.

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FD : Ce questionnement est essentiel car il touche aux fondements éthiques de ce type de projets et en particulier des Scénos Urbaines. En ce sens, notre participation à Univers des Mots ne correspond pas à la façon dont nous avons l‘habitude d‘inscrire les projets en lien avec les contextes urbains et leurs habitants.

Et si un grand nombre de réalisations ont produit la fascination esthétique dont tu parles, et je m‘en réjouis, nous sommes restés très en-deçà des objectifs que nous espérions en raison d‘un cadre de production que nous ne maitrisions pas. Nous étions en fait invités par La Muse, association porteuse d‘Univers des Mots, pour les accompagner à implanter dans un quartier de Conakry un festival de théâtre qui se déroulait traditionnellement dans des salles dédiées aux spectacles. Il s‘agissait pour nous de penser avec eux la présence des productions théâtrales chez les gens, dans les cours, sur des places ou dans les rues, mais des approches différentes entre les organisateurs et nous du rapport au contexte et des difficultés de production ont fortement limité l‘ambition du projet initial.

Pour répondre aux questions posées, je préfère évoquer un autre projet plus proche du processus que tu as vécu à Kisangani avec Faustin et qui a été pour les Scénos Urbaines une des plus belles réussites, tant d‘un point de vue artistique que du lien avec la population locale qui a accueilli la résidence. Il s‘agit du projet réalisé dans le quartier de Ouakam à Dakar en 2012-2013 avec le chorégraphe Andréya Ouamba et sa compagnie de danse Premier Temps. Un des éléments fondamentaux que tu cites dans le projet de Kisangani est celui du temps de développement et de mise en place d‘un projet dans ce type de contexte, et je dirais dans tout contexte. C‘est un temps incompressible de prise de contact avec les lieux et les habitants, de compréhension fine des fonctionnements, temps de rencontres, d‘échanges, de connaissance mutuelle des enjeux, des désirs ; un temps de mise en place de complicités et de respect, car comme j‘en parlais précédemment, le lien humain est essentiel à la réussite artistique des projets telles qu‘on en partage l‘ambition.

Et ce à tel point que lors de la toute première résidence des Scénos dans le quartier New Bell à Douala, ne sachant comment ce qui n’était pour nous qu’une

expérience pouvait se passer, nous n‘avions formulé aucune demande de réalisation aux artistes invités.

Notre souhait était simplement qu‘ils résident trois semaines dans le quartier, en lien avec les habitants qu‘ils côtoyaient et qui les hébergeaient. Finalement, tous les artistes ont participé à un festival de trois jours qui a réuni la grande majorité des habitants qui avaient bien du mal à comprendre pourquoi tant d‘artistes étrangers s‘intéressaient si généreusement à leur quartier. Ce temps long de préparation a été pris à Dakar, le projet s‘est mis en place sur trois ans qui ont permis différents séjours préparatoires, mais aussi une intense sensibilisation de la population du quartier menée par Premier Temps qui résidait sur place. Quand les artistes sont arrivés à Ouakam pour une résidence d‘un mois, ils étaient, en un sens, attendus. Le fait ensuite d‘habiter et de vivre dans le quartier au contact permanent des gens facilite l‘intégration d‘un projet autrement perçu comme un ' alien (. Un autre principe des Scénos Urbaines est de produire des retombées économiques directes pour la population. Loger, manger, consommer sur place, mais aussi engager des habitants, des associations pour assister des artistes, fabriquer des objets (accessoires, éléments scéniques…), tout cela concourt à produire une réelle intégration. Pour Dakar, nous avions demandé aux Bitcaves, un collectif de graphistes d‘Amsterdam, de nous accompagner sur la communication de l‘événement. Plutôt que de produire des outils conventionnels de communication, elles choisirent de réaliser un journal de petites annonces qui était à la fois le programme du festival avec une présentation de chacun des artistes, mais aussi un espace presque publicitaire pour différents acteurs sociaux et économiques du quartier, le tout dans une mise en page qui mélangeait projets artistiques et vie quotidienne, tiré à 10 000 exemplaires sur les presses du Soleil, un quotidien local. Ouakam Annonces a été distribué en masse quelques jours avant le début du festival. Cet outil de communication fut surtout un formidable levier de mise en relation des artistes et du public devenu à bien des égards acteurs du projet.

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You have to set the map aside and get onto the terrain Mettre les cartes de côté et descendre sur le terrain

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BM: Beautiful approaches and simple, powerful strategies to engage! Indeed, the ethics or appropriateness, impact, and sustainability of a project are strongly dependent on the motivations of the joint forces behind it. And each collaboration is of a different nature, parameters need to be set anew each time.

As you said, it is very much about time and presence and continuity. Architects are mostly very bad at that. [a]FA has been quite successful in creating and maintaining long-term relationships, engagements, and projects. But its biggest challenge is still facing the notion of time — on many levels. As architects and researchers, we always come from outside, and we always operate within a (tight) timeframe, which has potential, but is also very limiting. Hardly ever do we speak or operate from within or over extensive periods of time; even less so when coming from afar. Compared to other professions, what is considered a long (field) research phase for architecture or in architectural education is mostly laughable, and there are a lot of pseudo “participatory” projects happening as well. What we did in Conakry was an ad-hoc intervening, which I felt it would be best to declare it as from the beginning. Nevertheless, or maybe even because of this, challenging the notion of context was the most relevant topic to me — this tension between a contextual approach and the aim of visibility, or the claim of creating a surplus…

FD: [a]FA made an appropriate tactical choice in Conakry — and probably the only viable one, in view of the short time you had on site. It was interesting to see how strongly you connected with the context, without wanting or being able to work on it —because it was impossible to ignore — and how the portico-style object you made was a means of engaging with both the neighborhood and the festival. Your contextual approach came into being through the act of making, which was probably something new for your students, an enriching experience that will stay with them. At every stage of its existence, the portique reflected the reality of everyday local life: construction materials, manufacturing, negotiation, inclusion in the festival, logistics, transport…

To conclude, and to return to what you said about the temporality of architectural projects, it seems to me that we share the same feeling of insufficiency, the same frustration at not being able to spend enough time on the projects we initiate, at rarely being able to go back and continue what we started. I’d love to go back to Dakar, Kinshasa, Port-au-Prince…, to create new residencies on the strength of the previous ones. One day I’d like the project we dreamed of for the Kaporo farm in Conakry — which was really only just begun in the fall of 2019 — to come to fruition, with the help of the inhabitants.

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François Duconseille & Baerbel Mueller

BM : De belles approches, simples, et des stratégies efficaces pour créer du lien ! Mais il est vrai que les questions d’éthique, de pertinence, d’impact et de durabilité d’un projet sont intimement liées aux motivations des forces à l’œuvre derrière lui. De plus, chaque collaboration est d’une nature différente et les paramètres doivent être revus à chaque fois. Comme tu l’as dit, tout est question de temps, de présence et de continuité. Et les architectes sont pour la plupart assez mauvais en la matière ! [a]FA a cependant réussi à créer et à entretenir sur le long terme des relations, des engagements et des projets. Mais le plus grand défi est de se confronter à la question du temps, et ce à plusieurs niveaux. En tant qu’architectes et chercheurs, nous venons toujours de l’extérieur et nous opérons toujours sur une période de temps donnée (souvent limitée) qui permet des choses mais qui limite beaucoup aussi. Nous ne parlons ou n’intervenons presque jamais de l’intérieur ou sur de longues périodes, encore plus si nous venons de loin. À côté d’autres professions, ce que nous considérons comme une longue étape de recherche sur le terrain pour l’architecture ou dans l’enseignement de l’architecture est presque ridicule, sans parler de tous ces pseudo-projets participatifs aussi. À Conakry, nous avons fait une intervention ad-hoc que j’ai souhaité dès le début définir ainsi. Malgré tout, ou peut-être justement en raison de cela, questionner la notion du contexte était le sujet le plus pertinent pour moi. Cette tension entre une approche contextuelle, une volonté de visibilité et la possibilité d’apporter un plus…

FD : Le choix tactique d‘[a]FA à Conakry était juste et sans doute le seul viable au regard du peu de temps dont vous disposiez sur place. Il est intéressant de constater comment, sans vouloir et pouvoir travailler sur le contexte, vous l‘avez rencontré fortement car l‘ignorer est impossible. Comment l‘objet portique que vous avez produit a été un instrument pour rencontrer le quartier et le festival. Votre approche contextuelle s‘est réalisée par le faire, ce qui a été sans doute une nouveauté pour tes étudiants et une expérience enrichissante qui les marquera. À chaque étape de la vie du portique se lisait la réalité de la vie quotidienne locale ; matériaux, fabrication, négociation, inscription dans les productions du festival, logistique, transport…

Pour conclure et revenir sur ce que tu exposes du rapport au temps des projets architecturaux, j‘aimerais te dire que nous partageons le même sentiment d‘insuffisance, la même frustration de ne pas pouvoir consacrer suffisamment de temps aux projets que l‘on met en œuvre, de rarement pouvoir y revenir et poursuivre ce qui a été amorcé. J‘aimerais revenir à Dakar, à Kinshasa, à Port-au-Prince…, y produire de nouvelles résidences fortes de celles passées, j‘aimerais qu‘un jour se réalise sur le terrain de la ferme Kaporo à Conakry, avec les gens qui y vivent, le projet rêvé ensemble et tout juste effleuré à l‘automne 2019.

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Conakry On My Mind

In the field of the performing arts, what does it mean to “make do with”’ or to “do without” when you want to introduce an artistic gesture into a complex context combining scarcity, political uncertainty, economic stagnation and despair — which was the case in Guinea in November 2019, under Alpha Condé? Formulated as a subject for reflection, this consideration echoes the overwhelming sense of despair I felt prior to the creation of the play The Survivors — an impossible challenge I found myself faced with on my first “getting to know you” trip to Conakry in April 2019. I can still hear Jean Christophe Lanquetin saying, with an air of absolute conviction and just a hint of mischief, “But you’re a playwright, Lionel!” Me, a playwright? Where on earth did he get that idea? I had never put on a single play in my whole life! How had this come about? What did Lanquetin and his accomplice François Duconseille have in mind by roping me into this unlikely adventure?

The circus artists When François Duconseille told me about the Univers des Mots festival in Conakry during one of our Messenger conversations, it was the first time I’d heard of it.

And when he suggested working on the creation of a show with circus artists, the idea appealed to me at once. Circus artists? I began to imagine trapezists and acrobats performing breathtaking feats, and saw myself engaged in lofty discussions on gravity and vertigo — as part of a high-flying troupe, in other words. Fired with enthusiasm, I arrived in Conakry on the afternoon of April 14, 2019, looking forward to the meeting with the circus artists scheduled for the next morning.

When the so-called artists turned up and were introduced to me, it would be an understatement to say I came crashing down to earth! The hopes of high-flying conversation I’d been cherishing for weeks — indeed months — in my Douala hermitage went up in smoke, giving way to a sort of desert, a justifiably disturbing empty page: most of my new associates couldn’t speak a single word of French, except for one or two who seemed to be making it up as they went along… Wow! Where was I? What had the Strasbourg duo got me into? I tried to dispel a growing sense of ambush: why would my partners in criticism of the Faustian world set me such a trap? Was my bewilderment obvious? Well yes, of course it was! I tried to hide it, but they were bound to notice… and anyway, I made no secret of my raging disappointment to my interlocutors! I’d just have to make do with what was available…, so there I was, in a state of total perplexity. I’d been pushed outside my comfort zone — how would I deal with it? It was a huge challenge that kept me awake at night in my rented apartment bedroom.

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Fouyanté Compared to what I’d imagined, what I saw of the young troupe’s acrobatic and juggling skills left me somewhat underwhelmed. The gravity-defying stunts they performed were rehashed classical numbers: pyramids and double flips (what we used to call somersaults in Douala). The ad-hoc intermediary had briefed me before they arrived: basically, the idea of leaving for the mirage of Europe appealed to them as much as it had to their compatriots who’d already set out there despite all the known mortal dangers. It is noteworthy that most of the unaccompanied minors in Paris are Guinean — a statistical fact that tells us only one thing: there’s no future for them in their homeland, so they try their luck elsewhere.

As the hours went by, I muddled my way forward, attempting to grasp their understanding of their place in postcolonial Guinean society, as members of impoverished families. A memory occurred to me: the low esteem in which daredevils of their kind were held by sanctimonious folk in 1960s Cameroon, where they were regarded as good-for-nothings. At one point during our awkward conversation I asked, with a translator’s help, “What do they call you here?” and, once they’d understood the question, “Fouyanté!” was their unhesitating answer. And naturally, a fouyanté is a halfwit, a loser. I could all too well imagine the jeering, the sidelong glances… I know how hard it can be having experienced it myself. The status of outcast is a particularly enlightening one.

This gave me some useful leverage however: I could help these youngsters build up a positive social identity despite the chronic denigration they endured.

This cleansing process was essential — a sine qua non — before I could begin to think of how we might work on a project together. “From now on, guys, you’re survivors!” I said, and once I’d said it, I endeavored to explain what I meant: considering the ravages of malaria (and the toddlers who bear the brunt of it), considering the many other endemic African diseases and the countless non-health-related causes of death, and considering all those who have lost their lives in the Sahara or the Mediterranean, these guys were true survivors.

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Lionel Manga

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Qu’est-ce que ' faire avec ( ou ' faire sans (, lorsqu’il y va d’un geste artistique à inscrire dans le champ du spectacle vivant et dans un contexte complexe où se télescopent pénurie, incertitude politique, marasme économique et désespérance, tel que la Guinée battant pavillon Alpha Condé en novembre 2019 ? De la sorte formulée comme un thème de réflexion, cette préoccupation fait écho aux affres qui me submergèrent avant la création de la pièce Les Survivants. Une fois mis au pied du mur, sinon même dos au mur, en avril 2019, lors du premier séjour pour la prise de contact, j’entends encore le Jean Christophe Lanquetin me dire ' Mais tu es un dramaturge, Lionel ! ( d’un air tout à fait convaincu, non dépourvu pour autant d’une certaine malice. Moi, un dramaturge ? Où est-ce qu’il allait chercher ça ? Je n’avais encore jamais monté une seule pièce de ma vie. Comment cela se pouvait-il ? Qu’est-ce que lui et son comparse François Duconseille avaient en tête à me faire un plan aussi improbable ?

Les circassiens C’est à la faveur d’une de nos conversations que François Duconseille ouvre cette fenêtre sur un festival qui se déroule à Conakry, Univers des Mots, et l’idée de travailler avec des circassiens pour créer un spectacle.

La perspective m’emballe. Des circassiens ? Je me figure des trapézistes et des acrobates réalisant des figures étourdissantes et, nous vois, en train d’échanger en haute fréquence sur la gravité et le vertige, une troupe de haut vol, quoi ! C’est plein d’enthousiasme donc que j’arrive à Conakry le 14 avril 2019, pour la première fois, impatient de rencontrer ces circassiens.

Lorsque les so-called circassiens me sont présentés, c’est vraiment peu dire que je tombe de haut.

L’espoir de conversations en haute fréquence que je caresse depuis plusieurs semaines, voire même plusieurs mois à Douala, s’évanouit sur le champ. Lui fait place alors une sorte de plage vierge, de page blanche, quelque peu inquiétante et pour cause. Les partenaires annoncés ne parlent pas un traître mot de français pour la plupart, hormis un ou deux qui le baragouinent.

Wow ! Où suis-je là ? Qu’est-ce que le tandem de Strasbourg me fait là, comme ça ? Une sensation griffue de traquenard tente alors de s’infiltrer dans ma closerie intérieure et je la repousse. Pourquoi mes complices dans la critique du monde faustien me tendraient-ils un piège ? Est-ce que mon désappointement est perceptible ? Forcément. J’essaie de le contenir, mais il n’a pas pu leur échapper et de toutes les façons, je m’ouvre sans ambages à mes interlocuteurs. Je vais devoir faire avec ça, avec ce que j’ai sous la main, et nous y voilà rendus, à la croisée des perplexités.

Fouyanté De ce que ces jeunes gens me montrent ce jour-là de leurs aptitudes en acrobatie et jonglerie, je resterai plutôt sur ma faim, eu égard à ma projection initiale. Et même si quelques figures réalisées défient la gravité, elles restent classiques et rabâchées, pyramide et double salto, aka saut périlleux naguère à Douala. Le médiateur de circonstance m’a briefé avant leur arrivée et en substance, le verbe partir ne clignote pas moins au fond de qu’au fond de celles de leurs compatriotes qui ont un jour pris la route vers le mirage de l’Europe, malgré les périls mortels répertoriés. Il faut savoir que le plus gros du contingent des mineurs isolés à Paris est guinéen. En clair, ce fait statistique dit une seule chose : zéro futur au pays pour eux, ils vont donc voir ailleurs.

Au fil des heures, cahin-caha, s’est mis en place cet atelier mental visant à prendre la mesure de leur capacité d’appréhension de la place qu’ils occupent, eux issus de familles démunies, dans la société guinéenne postcoloniale. Une réminiscence a le don de s’en mêler et il me revient la piètre opinion que les bien-pensants avaient des débrouillards de leur acabit au Cameroun, dans les années 60, perçus comme des vauriens. ' Comment vous désigne-t-on ici ? ( leur demandé-je alors à un moment donné dans cet échange filandreux par traducteur interposé. Quand ils comprennent où ma question veut en venir, la réponse fuse : ' Fouyanté ! ( et comme de bien entendu, un ' fouyanté ( est un nullard, un loser. J’imagine les quolibets, les regards obliques, je sais à quel point c’est lourd et dur à vivre pour avoir connu ça aussi. La case paria est on ne peut plus édifiante.

Je tiens là pour le coup un efficace levier : fourbir avec eux une identité sociale positive, au large de la déconsidération chronique dont ces jeunes sont victimes. Avant de commencer à envisager ce que nous pourrions entreprendre ensemble, ce curage s’impose comme un préalable incontournable, sine qua non. ' Désormais, vous êtes des Survivants, les gars ! ( et l’ayant dit, je me suis attelé à leur expliquer en quoi. Eu égard aux ravages du paludisme, surtout sur les enfants de moins de cinq ans qui en font les frais, eu égard à toutes les autres pathologies endémiques faisant leur lit sur le continent et les multiples occasions de mourir qui ne sont pas liées à la maladie, eu égard à celles et ceux qui vont périr dans le Sahara ou la Méditerranée, ils sont des Survivants.

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Conakry On My Mind

We spent the following days of this getting-to-knowyou phase at their usual haunt, the “Blue Zone” in Kaloum (built by Bolloré). I had no clear idea of where I was heading. I couldn’t give them a text — they didn’t speak French. So what form would this project take now that it was no longer the collaborative effort I’d imagined?

When we went our separate ways two weeks later, after putting together the sketchy outline of an urban tableau (to see who would be best at portraying which street character), I set them a homework task: to begin each day, before setting foot outdoors, with a sort of selfmotivational mantra: “I’m a survivor! I’m a survivor! I’m a survivor!”

Incubation Back home in Douala, I had six months ahead of me to rustle up something that could be presented at the Univers des Mots festival in November. The days went by.

Sometimes, on starless, moonless nights, I wondered how I’d ever got myself into such a paradoxical pickle: how could I relate my project to the theme of words when the survivors didn’t understand French? In view of this considerable handicap, what would we say and how would we present it? In the still dead of night, a reedy little voice kept whispering “Why not turn things to your advantage and take a spectacular gamble?” When someone gives you an opportunity, you don’t bungle it… The days passed and the incubation period ran its course — (in dormant botanical mode).

By the time I arrived in Conakry for the festival, I had developed a cruciform stage design that created a tension between four aspects of African daily life since the conspicuous failure of independence: Power and Bureaucracy formed one axis, with Dissipation and Debauchery forming a perpendicular one, while a Graduate went back and forth along the first.

1 Stokely Carmichael, charismatic leader and honorary prime minister of the Black Panthers in the USA, theorized the concept of systemic racism. Hounded by the FBI, he left the US for good in 1969.

2 After being reelected in 2015, Alpha Condé solemnly promised not to run for office again but now intends to change the constitution to allow for a third term…

3 Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.

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When I was asked to present my proposals in a short 30-second video a few weeks before the event, I said it would be a poem. The generic concept of ‘design’ freed me from any formal preconceptions. It was also becoming increasingly clear that, to bring words into being, I’d have to give it my all. But how I would do it remained a total mystery until an idea suddenly came to me as I was sitting at my table facing the window, while the sea on the horizon was threatening to come crashing vengefully down, tsunami-style: “Why not write a text in tribute to your teenage hero Stokely Carmichael, aka Kwame Ture?”1 After all, he’d lain here virtually forgotten for the past 21 years…

The pyrotechnic duo Wherever this inspiration came from, it suited my frame of mind with regard to the context in Guinea, where Alpha Condé had decided to change the constitution to seek a third term in office.2 The evocation of my hero would help me detach myself from an incredibly irritating present without losing sight of it altogether.

I got it into my head that I’d present a portrait of him, and one night, while searching for a reliable track, I found myself in a dance hall where the band played a series of pop numbers before launching into “Hasta Siempre”— the song about the valiant and immortal Che Guevara; the whole audience sang along, and it was amazing.

Then the HEAR (Haute École des Arts du Rhin) in Strasbourg, a partner of the festival, sent out a crew of young scenographers, first-timers in Africa, and two of them — Anton Grandcoin and Gabriella Ritz — fell under my charge.

My basic proposal — the cruciform design with its four poles — was flimsy, but appealing and inspirational in terms of its ambition. The pyrotechnic duo began to pad it out, giving it greater theatrical impact by, for example, piling up rainbow-colored plastic chairs to represent absolute power and its distance from ordinary people, and giving the installation process a rhythmic choreography. With none of the despicable whining of privileged WEIRD3 people sojourning in regions lacking conveniences, the duo’s wholehearted involvement in the creation of this unusual play in Conakry went beyond the helpful and verged on the devotional! Gabriella even burned herself on the exhaust pipe of a motorbike while buying materials for the production needs of this unlikely poem on historical incompleteness.

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Lionel Manga

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La suite des jours de cette première phase d’imprégnation réciproque se déroule à la Blue Zone de Kaloum, made by Bolloré, leur mouillage habituel, sans aucune idée précise de là où je vais. Il est hors de question que je leur fasse porter un texte puisqu’ils ne s’expriment pas en français. Quelle forme aura donc cette œuvre qui n’est plus collaborative comme je le voyais ? Quand on se quitte au bout de quinze jours, après avoir fignolé une vague maquette de tableau urbain pour fixer les aptitudes des uns et des autres à incarner tel ou tel personnage de la rue, je leur assigne un petit devoir : se répéter tous les matins en se levant et avant de mettre le nez dehors ' Je suis un Survivant !

Je suis un Survivant ! Je suis un Survivant !(, comme un mantra d‘auto-motivation.

Incubation De retour à Douala, j’ai donc six mois devant moi pour concocter quelque chose qui tienne la route en novembre et soit présentable au festival Univers des Mots. Puis, les jours commencent à passer et certaines nuits sans lune ni étoiles, je me demande en me pressant les méninges dans quoi je me suis fourré. Le paradoxe à résoudre n’est pas mince en l’occurrence : comment procéder pour s’inscrire dans cette thématique des mots si les Survivants ne captent pas le français ? Et d’ailleurs, qu’est-ce que nous allons dire ?

En le présentant sous quelle forme au vu de ce handicap majeur ? ' Il t’est possible toutefois de retourner en atout formidable pour tenter un coup de poker magistral ! ( souffle régulièrement cette petite voix flûtée au plus profond de la quiétude nocturne s’épanouissant. On ne se saisit pas d’une perche tendue pour faire un flop. Les jours passent et l’incubation suit son cours en mode dormance de la botanique.

En arrivant à Conakry pour le F.U.M., je tenais déjà un dispositif scénique et cruciforme mettant en tension quatre aspects constitutifs du quotidien en Afrique sous échec flagrant de l’Indépendance : le Pouvoir et la Bureaucratie formant un axe, la Dissipation et le Stupre en formant alors un autre, perpendiculaire, un Diplômé va et vient le long du premier axe.

1 Leader charismatique du mouvement des Black Panthers au USA, traqué par le FBI, il en fut le premier ministre et théorisa la notion de racisme institutionnel.

Il s’exile définitivement en 1969.

2 Alpha Condé avait solennellement promis de ne pas briguer un troisième mandat lorsqu’il fut réélu en 2015 et veut désormais modifier la Constitution dans ce sens…

3 Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.

Lorsqu’il me fut demandé d’exposer dans une brève vidéo de trente secondes ce que j’allais proposer, quelques semaines avant, j’ai dit que ce serait un poème. La notion générique de dispositif me dégage de tout a priori morphologique. Il m’apparaît aussi de plus en plus incontournable que je vais devoir payer de ma personne afin que des mots existent. Mais comment ?

Mystère et boule de gomme. Jusqu’à ce déclic, assis devant la fenêtre à ma table, avec la mer menaçante sur l’horizon posé, comme prête à déferler façon tsunami vindicatif : ' Et si tu écrivais un texte en hommage à Stokely Carmichael aka Kwame Touré,1 cette figure héroïque de ton adolescence ? (, sachant qu’il repose là depuis 21 ans, presque oublié du monde.

Le tandem d’artificiers D’où qu’elle ait été soufflée, cette inspiration convenait parfaitement à l’état d’esprit dans lequel me plongeait la situation en Guinée, tendue par la décision d’Alpha Condé de modifier la Constitution pour briguer un nouveau mandat.2 Avec cette évocation, je peux me détacher d’une actualité énervante au possible, sans pour autant la perdre de vue. M’étant même mis en tête d’exhiber un portrait de lui, à chercher la piste fiable, je me retrouve une nuit dans un bastringue où l’orchestre, après avoir aligné de la variété, enchaîne avec Hasta Siempre, la chanson pour le preux et immortel Che Guevara, que l’assistance reprend en chœur et c’est juste énorme.

Partenaire du festival, la HEAR a déplacé une escouade mixte de jeunes scénographes qui découvrent l’Afrique et deux d’entre eux vont m’échoir, Anton Grandcoin et Gabriella Ritz.

Maigrichonne quoique séduisante et stimulante par ce qu’elle vise, ma proposition de base, ce dispositif cruciforme et ses quatre pôles, va prendre en quelque sorte du muscle, moyennant cette forme d’amplification scénique que lui applique le tandem d’artificiers.

Comme lorsqu’il empile des chaises en plastique de toutes les couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel pour figurer le pouvoir absolu et son éloignement du commun des mortels. Ou quand la mise en place prend la forme d’une swinguante chorégraphie. Sans faille aucune, sans aucun de ces abominables chichis geignards de Weird3 privilégiés séjournant en zone d’incommodités, leur implication de bout en bout dans la création de cette pièce singulière à Conakry est allée au-delà de l’assistance et a frisé le dévouement. Gabriella s’est même brûlée au tuyau d’échappement d’une moto en faisant des emplettes dédiées à la production de ce poème improbable sur l’inachèvement historique.

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Conakry On My Mind

For the ten days or so before the opening night, we designed and put together as best we could an undefinable object that dealt in an unconventional, offbeat way with the aborted promise of African emancipation. The addition of a stage door, in the form of a portico contributed by architects from Vienna led by the waif-like Baerbel Mueller, completely transformed the designated performance space on this barren, dusty wasteland surrounded by corrugated iron shacks and refreshment stalls with their motley crew of customers.

We often had to wait for a football match to end before we could rehearse, at dusk, observed by the regulars as they sipped their drinks (mostly beer brewed and sold by the Castel group).4 The blend of rustic and contemporary formed a wonderful resonance, an almost perfect harmony, enhancing the poetic power of The Survivors.

Less is more Admittedly, the South is not the North and, as we know all too well, standards are not the same. There is nothing ontological about this discrepancy — a pure product of history — which is also represented by a series of antinomies, such as rigor/laxity, planning/improvisation, and salubrity/insalubrity, just to name but a few, still prevalent in many so-called “cultivated” consciences.

When confronted with these contexts in Africa, informed by specific frames of reference and following in the wake of situatedness, creators go with the flow by playing the contextualization card: there, I’ve said it! The adjustment sometimes stems from a subtle appreciation of often complex situations and locations, but this indulgence often covers up a lurking miserabilism that comes to the fore, to the detriment of a culture of high standards. Is a lack of punctuality, for example, more acceptable in Douala than in Paris? Why should turning up for an appointment at the agreed time and place not have the same value in each city, if not for a shallow demagogy that is flourishing and gaining ground?

According to British anthropologist Tim Ingold, “We are accustomed to think of making as a project.

This is to start with an idea in mind of what we want to achieve, and with a supply of the raw material needed to achieve it. And it is to finish at the moment the material has taken on its intended form.”5 But Ingold categorically rejects this widespread hylomorphic approach, preferring “to think of making as a process of growth.”6

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And he continues: “To read making longitudinally, as a confluence of forces and materials, rather than laterally, as a transposition from image to object, is to regard it as such a form-generating — or morphogenetic — process.”7 This powerful reflection on material production applies equally well to the approach I adopted from start to finish in the creation of The Survivors.

After 500 years of hegemony on every level, acknowledgment of the inevitable provincialization of the West in the wake of postcolonial refutation does not imply compromise or indulgence with regard to the flaws that plague the Southern countries and societies.

A sound system, for example, needs regular maintenance; if that maintenance is lacking and it starts to crackle, there’s no point accusing the machine of capriciousness in a pitiful outburst of animism. We should stop taking God’s children for wild geese to be shot on sight! Poverty can be honorable and doesn’t necessarily entail indignity, still less irrationality. Less is more, in many ways, but this ecologically-minded refrain should not be used to legitimize a lack of quality.

Obstacles are obstacles, in the South and the North alike. So why should I bow and scrape before a local bigwig when a rehearsal has been scheduled for that exact time and bootlicking isn’t my style? Northerners should stop looking to the South for redemption from the Faustian villainy of History. Chameleons contextualize marvelously in their varied natural environment, but I’m not entirely sure I’m one of them… not yet, at any rate.

Contextualizing can lead to jumping on the bandwagon, and by the time you realize your mistake, the damage has been well and truly done. To “make do with” is also to ‘’do without’’ and the two go together like the heads and tails of a single coin. Something mildly contemptuous, an unacknowledged form of arrogance, can sometimes lie beneath the innocuous appearance of contextualization…

4 The leading French wine group and second-largest producer of beer and soft drinks in Africa, where it generates over 80% of its turnover (source: Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2018) 5 p.59, Making, Anthropology, Art and Architecture, Tim Ingold (Routledge, London and New York, 2013), pp.20-22 6 Tim Ingold, op cit., p.60 7 Tim Ingold, op cit., p.61

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Durant la petite dizaine de jours avant la première, nous avons conçu et peaufiné du mieux que nous pouvions, un objet indéfinissable traitant à sa manière non-conventionnelle, hors des sentiers battus, de la promesse avortée d’émancipation en Afrique.

L’adjonction du portique des architectes venus de Vienne sous l’égide de la frêle Baerbel Mueller, en guise d’entrée des artistes, a complètement transfiguré l’espace délimité de la représentation sur ce terrain vague, pelé et poussiéreux, cerné par des baraques en tôles et des buvettes diversement fréquentées, où il fallait attendre que s’achevât d’abord une partie de football pour répéter au crépuscule, sous le regard des habitué(e)s attablé(e)s à leurs boissons, essentiellement de la bière vendue et brassée par le groupe Castel.4 Cette fusion du rustique et du contemporain a produit une sublime résonance, proche de l’accord parfait, tout en donnant aux Survivants encore un peu plus de poésie.

Less is more Le Sud n’est pas le Nord, certes, et les standards ne sauraient être les mêmes, on ne le sait que trop bien.

Cette différence qui n’a rien d’ontologique et ne le doit qu’à l’Histoire se décline aussi dans une suite d’antinomies telles que rigueur/laxisme, planification/ improvisation, salubrité/insalubrité et j’en passe, lesquelles demeurent en vigueur sous maintes caboches de consciences dites cultivées. Confronté(e)s à ces contextes en Afrique informés par des référentiels spécifiques, et dans le sillage du situatedness, créateurs et créatrices s’y coulent en jouant la carte de la contextualisation : le mot est lâché. Si cette adaptation procède parfois d’une intelligence subtile des situations autant que des lieux qui tous deux peuvent s’avérer complexes à saisir, le misérabilisme n’est pas loin de rôder dans cette latitude prenant des aises au grand dam d’une culture de l’exigence. L’imponctualité seraitelle, par exemple, plus acceptable à Douala qu’à Paris ?

En vertu de quoi se trouver à l’heure et au lieu convenus pour un rendez-vous n’aurait-il pas la même valeur dans l’une et l’autre ville, hormis cette flatulente démagogie qui prospère et gagne du terrain ? ' Nous sommes habitués (, avance Tim Ingold, ' à penser le faire en termes de projet. Faire quelque chose implique d’abord avoir une idée en tête de ce que l’on veut réaliser, puis se procurer les matériaux nécessaires à cette réalisation. Et le travail s’achève lorsque les matériaux ont pris la forme qu’on voulait leur donner (.5 L’anthropologue britannique récuse catégoriquement ce schéma hylémorphique répandu. ' Je voudrais au contraire penser le faire (, dit-il, ' comme un processus

Lionel Manga

de croissance (.6 Avant d’enfoncer le clou : ' Penser le faire d’un point de vue longitudinal, comme la confluence de forces et de matières, et non plus latéralement, comme la transposition d’une image sur un objet, c’est concevoir la génération de la forme, ou la morphogénèse, comme un processus (.7 En ce qui concerne la production matérielle, cette réflexion puissante s’applique très bien à la démarche qui depuis le premier jour aura abouti à la création des Survivants.

Acter dorénavant la provincialisation inexorable de l’Occident, après cinq cents ans d’hégémonie sur tous les paliers, dans le sillage de la réfutation postcoloniale, n’implique pas d’être indulgent avec les tares qui plombent les sociétés et pays du Sud, de s’en accommoder. Une sono, par exemple, ça s’entretient régulièrement, et quand la maintenance ne suivant pas, elle en vient à crachouiller, on aura beau jeu alors d’accuser la machine de faire des caprices, dans un piteux élan d’animisme censé alors servir d’explication à une défaillance quand elle devrait fonctionner. Il faut cesser de prendre les fieffés enfants du Bon Dieu pour des canards sauvages et flinguables à vue. La pauvreté peut être honorable et n’entraîne pas obligatoirement de plonger dans l’indignité tête la première, encore moins dans l’irrationalité. Less is more, par bien des aspects, mais cette devise produite par la lucidité écologique n’a pas vocation à légitimer l’absence de qualité. Lourdeur, c’est lourdeur, au Sud autant qu’au Nord. Pourquoi irais-je donc faire des courbettes à telle autorité locale, alors même qu’une répétition est programmée à cette heure-là et que ce n’est pas ma tasse de thé d’aller chez des chefs fortifier leur ego ? Les Nordistes devraient cesser de chercher au Sud une quelconque rédemption aux turpitudes faustiennes dans l’Histoire.

Les caméléons contextualisent à merveille au sein de leur milieu naturel tellement varié. Je ne suis pas tout à fait sûr d’en être un. Du moins, jusqu’à nouvel avis.

Contextualiser peut éventuellement conduire à hurler avec les loups, n’est-ce pas, et le temps de s’apercevoir alors de cette méprise abyssale, ma foi, le mal est fait, accompli, consommé jusqu’à la moelle. ' Faire avec (, c’est aussi ' faire sans ( et les deux options se rejoignent comme le côté pile et le côté face de la même médaille. Sous les atours anodins de la contextualisation peut parader un mépris soft, une arrogance ne disant pas son nom…

4 Numéro un du vin français, le groupe occupe la deuxième place des producteurs de bières et de boissons gazeuses sur le continent et y réalise plus de 80% de son chiffre d’affaires (source Le Monde diplomatique, octobre 2018).

5 p.59, Faire, Anthropologie, Art et Architecture, Tim Ingold, Éditions Dehors, 2017.

6 Tim Ingold, op cité, p.60 7 Tim Ingold, op cité, p.61

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FR: Where to start? The first thing is very simple, but fundamental: why did you choose performance? Or did performance choose you?

AMK: I was the one who chose performance.

FR: FR: And why?

I’m highly interested in your work as it seems to be on the quest for magic, doesn’t it? You said you were a wizard.

AMK: Before, I was not doing performance, I was doing interior design. And because there were market problems, how to find a job in interior design, I had to quit interior design. And that was when Jean Christophe Laquetin came to Kinshasa. He had the opportunity to set up a partnership between the school of Strasbourg and the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, and it was thanks to the moment when he gave a workshop, he had presented to us, shown us the work of contemporary artists who were doing performance, Western artists from elsewhere, and also African artists. In this loop of images, the work that really inspired me was that of Steven Cohen. The moment I saw his work, I said to myself: “I have to do performance, I think my work is performance”. And so I divorced myself from academic art and interior design to start my performance career in 2005 in Kinshasa. And the very first performance that I did was during this workshop.

During the workshop, Jean Christophe asked us to find objects to work with. He told us we must find “sacred, everyday objects”. I found a fire. And then I went to collect, I had already built a huge installation in the shape of a circle. I put water, I put fire, I crawled through the mud and they called me a wizard. And from that day, from that year on, I’ve lived from performance up till today.

AMK: People have told me that I was born with certain spirits. The director of the theater in Strasbourg, after a performance, told me: “The ancestors are with you”.

I find that art is spirit, because the thoughts, the inspirations, are all imaginary. The spirits are invisible too, the soul of my artistic work is also spirituality. I have to say that I was never initiated into witchcraft, but I use the codes of the spirits, the way one can concentrate in order to pray or to worship something. I use codes of symbols that can put one in communication directly with the spirits, it is my way of invoking them. When I do performances, I go into a trance too. I think it is through this trance that the spirits join me to do a performance.

A performance is also sometimes dangerous, it can be difficult, but if you are accompanied by that spirit, it can work. Spirit is also control, it’s safety, it’s success, it’s power. I often say that performance is a very powerful art. It’s not like theater. Performance brings forward many emotions, sometimes sadness, sometimes joy.

And when I’m in the performance, in a trance, I don’t feel, I forget, I’m no longer there and it’s my body that acts in my place.

FR: That’s beautiful.

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FR : Par où commencer ? Peut-être par une question très simple mais fondamentale : pourquoi avoir choisi la performance ? Ou est-ce la performance qui t’a choisi ?

AMK : C’est moi qui ai choisi la performance.

FR : FR : Pourquoi ?

AMK : Au début, je ne faisais pas de performance, ma spécialité était l’architecture d’intérieur. Mais parce qu’il n’y avait pas de marché, peu de possibilités de trouver un travail dans ce domaine, j’ai dû changer. C’est à ce moment-là que Jean Christophe Lanquetin est arrivé à Kinshasa. Il avait mis en place un partenariat entre l’École de Strasbourg et l’Académie des Beaux-Arts à Kinshasa et il donnait un atelier dans lequel il nous avait montré le travail d’artistes contemporains qui faisaient de la performance, des artistes occidentaux, des artistes d’ailleurs, mais aussi des artistes africains. Parmi toutes ces images, la démarche qui m’avait vraiment frappé était celle de Steven Cohen. Au moment même où je regardais son travail, je me suis dit : ' Je dois faire de la performance, je crois que mon travail, c’est la performance ! ( C’est ainsi que j’ai quitté l’art académique et l’architecture d’intérieur pour commencer une carrière de performeur à Kinshasa en 2005. Et ma toute première performance s’est tenue dans le cadre de cet atelier.

Dans cet atelier, Jean Christophe demandait aux artistes de trouver des objets pour travailler avec. Des ' objets sacrés, des objets du quotidien (. J’avais trouvé un feu, puis je suis allé ramasser des choses, des déchets, j’en ai fait une immense installation en forme de cercle, j’y ai placé le feu et l’eau et je rampais dans la boue et on m’appelait sorcier. Et depuis ce jour-là, cette année-là, j’ai habité la performance, jusqu’à aujourd’hui.

Ce qui m’intéresse beaucoup dans ton travail, c’est qu’il semble partir à la recherche de la magie. Tu as dit que tu étais un sorcier ?

AMK : Les gens disent que je suis né avec certains esprits.

Un jour, la directrice d’un théâtre à Strasbourg m’a dit après une performance : ' Toi, les ancêtres sont avec toi ! ( J’ai découvert que l’art est esprit, parce que les pensées, les inspirations viennent de l’imaginaire. Les esprits sont également invisibles et l’âme de mon travail artistique prend source dans la spiritualité. Si je n’ai jamais été initié à la sorcellerie, j’en utilise les codes, l’extrême concentration avec laquelle on prie ou on adore par exemple. J’utilise cette concentration et aussi les codes, les symboles qui vous mettent directement en communication avec les esprits, c’est ainsi que je les invoque. Lorsque je performe, je rentre aussi en transe. C’est à travers elle que les esprits me rejoignent pendant la performance. Une performance, c’est parfois dangereux, difficile, mais si tu es accompagné par les esprits, quelque chose peut opérer. L’esprit, c’est aussi le contrôle, la sécurité, le succès, la puissance. Je dis souvent que la performance est un art très puissant. Ce n’est pas comme le théâtre. La performance ramène beaucoup d’émotions, parfois la tristesse, parfois la joie.

Mais au moment où je performe, lorsque je suis en transe, je ne me sens plus, j’oublie, je ne suis plus là et c’est mon corps qui agit à ma place.

FR : C’est beau, ça…

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AMK: It is my body that acts in my place. I think I have something to do with the spirits because I often use things that can be mystical, transform them and bring them into the mystical world. Performance is like being in the house of a fetishist, a shaman. It’s very interesting that there are people in the city [Kinshasa] who have considered me to be a diviner, a sorcerer.

Some people have come to me and said “Pray for me”.

There’s a performance I did in Latvia in 2007. It was a network performance because there were three countries involved. We were doing a performance between three countries — Democratic Republic of Congo, France and Latvia — and we held video conferences, so we were making movements, a first act.

I was expected to do something but it took me a long time to figure out what I needed to do to be the leader of that performance. I looked for inspiration, but it didn’t happen. Where I was sleeping, there was a bookshelf.

One night, a spirit said to me: “Take this book and look at it”. I took the book and I saw that Latvia celebrates spring fertility with crowns worn on the head. I said, this is my costume! This is what I want to do, spring fertility.

I sewed crowns, I had a little panty, I set fire to it and I started associating it with spirits. As I was in the middle of the action, there was a lady who went into a trance.

So, I started to perform with her, I started to observe her, I started to concentrate on her. She was with her sister, who said, “Come on, we’re leaving”. Her sister, because she spoke Latvian and I didn’t speak Latvian, I looked her in the eyes and she said, “Let go of my sister”. And at some point, I got up against the wall and I took the crown I had and put it on her head.

When I started the performance that I did on a Sunday here in Conakry, since I was getting dressed in the street, everybody was looking at me. Since it was next to the mosques, people chased me away and they told me I was a magician and my assistant said, “This is art, it’s not witchcraft, it’s not magic”. That is to say, I have something to do with the mystic, but it is not a mystic who will destroy people, it is not a mystic that does evil. No, it’s just my work.

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And I have noticed that I have something to do with the spirit and I use it in my work. If you see someone praying, for example, like the Muslims, they sit on a carpet.

No, first they start by washing their feet. That for me is performance. Even if we call out to the person praying, he doesn’t come. He remains concentrated in that attitude, in his position. He does his prayer and at the moment when he’s doing his prayer, if you have a clear eye, if you see better, you will see that he is speaking with…his word is going, he is in prayer. It’s moments like that that I like in the performance, where it becomes quiet and intimate concentration.

FR: Is there a language of the spirits?

AMK: It’s different, spirits can speak many languages, they can also speak the languages you speak, but you have to know it’s the spirits that are speaking them.

FR: It struck me that you use flowers, hair, and many different symbols in your work.

AMK: Symbols, yes. Sacred objects, symbolic objects, and also objects that have no value. And flowers, I love flowers because flowers are everywhere. I find that objects that have a history, their value in performance is strong. If you offer someone flowers, they say, “Ah, a pink flower”, he or she will thank you! For death, you always put flowers on a grave to think about that person. We also find flowers in houses, in the street, to embellish, decorate. It is very sacred to me, flowers.

In my work, I also talk about death because I became an orphan at the age of three. After my father died I never mourned his death, I was not conscious of it. Later, when I started growing up, I realized that my father was no longer there. And as a result, my work also grieves for that, that he was not there through me. I took it even further by mourning other people, dealing with the subject of death, of life. Because my work also rests in a place where there are difficulties, problems— I react to these problems artistically.

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AMK : Oui, c’est mon corps qui agit à ma place. Je crois que j’ai ce lien spécial avec les esprits parce que j’utilise souvent des éléments qui ont en eux ce potentiel mystique, je les transforme et les ouvre au monde mystique. La performance, c’est comme être dans la maison d’un féticheur, d’un chaman. À Kinshasa, il y avait des gens qui me considéraient comme un ' divinateur (, un sorcier. Des gens venaient me voir en me demandant de prier pour eux. En 2007, j’ai fait une performance en Lettonie. C’était une sorte de performance en réseau car il y avait trois pays impliqués, la République Démocratique du Congo, la France et la Lettonie et tout était retransmis par vidéoconférence.

C’était à nous de poser un premier acte et l’autre pays devait répondre. On m’avait demandé d’être le fil conducteur de la performance mais cela me prit longtemps pour savoir quelle direction lui donner. Je cherchais l’inspiration mais ça ne venait pas. Là où je dormais, il y avait une bibliothèque et une nuit, un esprit m’a commandé de prendre un livre et de le regarder.

J’ai pris ce livre et j’ai vu que la Lettonie célébrait au printemps le culte de la fertilité avec des couronnes sur la tête. Ça y est, j’avais trouvé mon costume ! Je savais que ce serait un culte de la fertilité. J’ai cousu des couronnes, des feuilles, je portais une petite culotte, dans la performance, j’ai allumé un feu pour invoquer des esprits. Alors que j’étais au beau milieu de l’action, une femme est entrée en transe. Au début, elle perturbait le travail, puis j’ai commencé à performer avec elle, à l’observer, à me concentrer sur elle. Elle était avec sa sœur qui lui disait : ' Viens, on part ! (. Elle m’a même demandé de lâcher sa sœur… À un certain moment, je me suis retrouvé contre le mur, j’ai pris la couronne que j’avais et je l’ai posée sur la tête de la femme. Puis elles sont parties…

Quand j’ai commencé la performance dimanche ici à Conakry et que je m’habillais dans la rue, tout le monde me regardait. Et comme j’étais près d’une mosquée, des gens m’ont chassé en me disant que j’étais un magicien et que je ne pouvais pas faire de la magie près de la mosquée. Mon assistant avait beau essayer de leur expliquer que ce n’était pas de la sorcellerie, pas de la magie, mais de l’art…

Tout ça pour dire que j’ai un lien spécial avec le mystique, mais pas le mystique qui détruit les gens ou fait du mal. Non, c’est juste mon travail. J’ai remarqué que j’ai ce lien spécial avec les esprits et j’utilise ça dans ma démarche. Lorsque vous voyez quelqu’un prier, un musulman par exemple, il s’assoit sur un tapis. Non d’abord, il se lave les pieds, ce qui pour moi est déjà une performance. Et si on appelle quelqu’un qui prie, il ne vient pas, il reste concentré, dans sa position, son attitude. Il prie et alors même qu’il fait ses prières, si tu as l’œil clair, tu verras qu’il parle avec… Sa parole s’élève, il est vraiment dans la prière. Ce sont des moments comme ça que j’aime dans la performance, des moments de concentration, calmes et intimes.

FR : Y a-t-il une langue des esprits ?

AMK : C’est différent, les esprits peuvent parler de nombreuses langues, mais ils peuvent aussi parler les langues que tu parles, il faut savoir que ce sont bien les esprits qui parlent...

FR : Dans ton travail, tu utilises des fleurs, des cheveux et bien d’autres symboles…

AMK : Des symboles, oui, des objets sacrés, des objets symboliques, mais aussi des objets qui n’ont aucune valeur. Je trouve que les objets qui ont une histoire, qui ont une valeur, donnent de la force à la performance.

Et les fleurs, j’aime les fleurs car elles sont partout. Si tu offres une fleur à quelqu’un, il te remerciera (. On met aussi des fleurs sur les tombes pour penser au défunt.

Tu trouves des fleurs dans les maisons, dans la rue, pour embellir, décorer. C’est quelque chose de très précieux pour moi, les fleurs.

Dans mon travail, j’aborde aussi la question de la mort car je suis devenu orphelin à trois ans. Quand mon père est mort, je n’ai pas pu faire le deuil, je n’avais pas conscience de ce qui se passait, et pourtant, c’est comme si toutes les cérémonies mortuaires étaient rentrées dans mon esprit. Et c’est plus tard, en grandissant, que j’ai réalisé que mon père n’était plus.

Et mon travail fait partie de ce processus du deuil, faire le deuil qui n’avait pas été fait. J’ai amené ça plus loin en faisant le deuil d’autres personnes, en explorant la mort, la vie… Parce que mon travail vient d’un endroit où il y a tant de problèmes, de difficultés, où rien ne marche, je réponds, je réagis à tout ça avec mon art.

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AMK:

FR: Masks are a recurring theme in your work: to put on paint, to change the appearance, the face…

AMK: Yes, as they say, the mask is the spirit. When you put on a mask, it means that you become another person.

You change your identity. In performances I like to transform myself a lot so that people don’t recognize that it is Androa. Through this transformation I am in harmony with the subject and also the spirit of the performance.

As the face is something that represents us, to know somebody, you have to know their face. Putting on masks allows me at the same time to change my identity and to enter another world.

FR: What do you think about the fact that images are crafted? As an artist, what is the importance of putting in place an image that wasn’t there before?

AMK: Making an image is also a creation. An image is composed of something, it’s made of many things. Every image conveys a story, tells us something. The picture is a record of thought. It’s the traces of thought, the traces of something that can remind you of something.

Especially in the photo, the photo is something that reminds you of a time, of a memory, of memories. And it’s also something you can trust. It’s evidence, it’s proof. And the image is very strong because it’s something you can keep and show. Without an image, I think there would be a void in life.

FR: When you start thinking about a new project, does it come intuitively? I’m curious. What happens when you start working?

It depends on the time, the project, the organization. My work is a transmitter/receiver of conflicts, of problems that confront the world and myself. In the world, a lot of things happen, in a country, a lot of things happen, in a neighborhood, in a house too. I’m inspired by that and I’m also inspired by people around me.

I have a receiver, like an antenna that captures inspirations, projects that I have to do. It can be a story, a word, something interesting I could adopt, I can find something interesting in the street. I take it and the project starts from that object. The project develops, I do research. And I end up having a project. But it’s really a lot of research, inspiration, observation and listening.

FR: In connection to this festival, what does it mean for you as a performer to work contextually, to work in a specific context? Like the performance you did at the Nongo bridge?

AMK: It’s very important to work within a context. It’s about research, investigation, observation, too, about knowing the history of this place, what happened in this place. But I’m lucky because sometimes I arrive in places, I start to investigate and then, suddenly, I’m already in it. I fall naked into this context. This is the spirit of inspiration, of observation. And this inspiration is sometimes unconscious. People say to me, “Ah, you know, what you did, there was that and that. Did you know?” I say, “No, I didn’t know”. So the work meets the context without me being conscious of it…

FR: And one of these stories happened to you when performing at the Nongo bridge?

AMK: Yes, indeed. I was told there used to be a tall man, a gentleman who walked and had very, very long legs.

What I did reminded them of a person who used to perform when they were kids. But it’s over now, nobody performs this anymore. So I reminded them of these characters back then…

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Éric Androa Mindre Kolo & Frida Robles

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FR : Le masque est un thème récurrent dans ton travail, mettre de la peinture, changer l’aspect du visage…

AMK : Oui comme on dit, le masque incarne l’esprit.

Quand tu mets un masque, tu deviens une autre personne. Tu changes d’identité. Et je pense que dans mes performances, j’aime me transformer, beaucoup, de telle sorte qu’on ne reconnaît plus Androa. Cette transformation me permet d’être en harmonie avec le sujet, mais aussi avec l’esprit de la performance.

De plus, le visage est ce qui nous (re)présente, pour connaître quelqu’un, tu dois connaître son visage.

Mettre un masque me permet à la fois de changer mon identité et de rentrer dans un autre monde.

FR : Que penses-tu du fait de créer, fabriquer des images ? En tant qu’artiste, quelle est l’importance de mettre en place une image qui n’était pas là avant ?

AMK : Faire une image, c’est un acte de création. Une image est composée de quelque chose, de plein de choses en fait. Et toute image nous raconte une histoire, nous dit quelque chose… L’image, c’est comme un enregistrement de la pensée, ce sont les traces de la pensée, les traces de quelque chose qui peut évoquer autre chose… Notamment la photo, la photo te rappelle une époque, la mémoire, des souvenirs. Et c’est aussi quelque chose qu’on peut partager. C’est la preuve, une pièce à conviction. L’image est très forte enfin car c’est quelque chose que tu peux garder et montrer. Sans image, je pense qu’il y aurait un vide dans la vie.

FR : Quand tu commences à penser à un nouveau projet, est-ce que cela vient intuitivement ? Je suis curieuse… Que se passe-t-il quand tu commences à travailler ?

AMK : Ça dépend des fois, des projets, de l’organisation.

Mon travail est comme un émetteur-récepteur des conflits, des problèmes qui traversent le monde et moimême. Dans le monde, il se passe beaucoup de choses, dans un pays, dans un quartier, dans une maison, il se passe beaucoup de choses. C’est ça qui m’inspire, et aussi les gens, les gens autour de moi. J’ai comme un récepteur, une petite antenne qui capte les inspirations, les projets que je dois faire... Une histoire, un mot, quelque chose dans la rue, quelque chose qui me semble intéressant, que je peux adopter. Je le prends et le projet commence à partir de là. Le travail se développe, je fais des recherches et je finis par avoir un projet. Mais c’est beaucoup de recherches, d’inspiration, d’observation et d’écoute aussi.

FR : En lien avec le festival, qu’est-ce que cela veut dire pour toi qui est performeur de travailler contextuellement, de travailler au sein d’un contexte spécifique ? Comme la performance que tu as faite ici au pont Nongo…

AMK : C’est très important de se confronter à un contexte quand tu travailles. C’est un travail de recherche aussi, d’investigation, d’observation pour comprendre l’histoire du lieu, qu’est-ce qui s’est passé dans ce lieu. Mais parfois, par intuition, en arrivant dans un endroit, et alors que je développe mes recherches, je suis plongé dans un contexte sans l’avoir vraiment cherché. Je tombe presque nu dans ce contexte et on me dit : ' Ce que tu as fait ici…, à l’époque il y a eu ça ici, ça m’a rappelé cette histoire… (, alors que je ne savais pas… C’est l’esprit de l’inspiration, de l’observation. Et cette inspiration est parfois inconsciente. Souvent, on me demande si je savais qu’il s’était passé telle ou telle chose, mais non, je ne savais pas… Parfois le travail rencontre le contexte sans que j’en sois même conscient.

FR : Et il y a cette histoire qui s’est produite à travers toi au pont Nongo…

AMK : En effet, on m’a dit qu’il y avait un homme qui marchait et qui avait de très très hautes jambes. Les gens m’ont dit que je leur rappelais cet homme qui se produisait quand ils étaient enfants, mais que maintenant, il n’y avait plus rien, qu’on ne voyait plus ça ici, ce genre de spectacle. Ils m’ont dit : ' Tu nous as rappelé ça, ces personnages-là à l’époque… (

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space in the context of my work i understand space as the horizon of (my) work, (my) thinking, (my) artistic exploration(s). space is the multifaceted fabric in which my work emerges, becomes entangled, changes, and in which it is thought. space is the background, the foreground, the context, the coordinates of thinking, acting, and inventing a work that is created with it. i cannot think of my artistic work without space. i understand space as a complex fabric of material, texture, order, knowledge — as the structure, as a grooved or dented lived practice. i understand space as an archive of its planning, foresight, and at the same time as an archive of its manifold infiltrations and transformations. spaces encounter me, they come to me. sometimes i search for certain spaces, only to discover that they do not exist. often, in the search for a space, encounters with other spaces occur — spaces that i could not have imagined, spaces that touch or shake me. spaces that encounter something in me. this encounter happens through the way something that gathers in this space reveals itself, fits, positions itself, or its reference to something else. some spaces leave something behind in me. there are spaces that i cannot forget, even if they no longer exist. some spaces leave a trace, create a hunch, evoke a mood, trigger a suspicion. sometimes it is also the assertion of this space over its surroundings, the rejection or the fusion, the existence within its specific context.

in the search for spaces, i encounter other spaces. something imprints itself, gets caught in me, and (re) opens a polyphonic narrative. this, in its polyphony, needs time for listening or simply time to grasp it (the space) again and again differently. and as a body in it, to experience itself along with the space. to create it. this listening in and with a space becomes part of (my) work, writes my work. my work merges with the space, pushes itself away from it, rubs against it, experiences time, material, and thoughts in it. i fantasize in the space, imagine space and try to read it. i never try to determine what it is or should be, but try to read the space over and over again. at different times of day and seasons, in different conditions; i try to remain curious about the space. i am curious about what it reveals of itself in it, with it, how, and in what way. a work carries the space with it, when the work moves around, wanders, nomadizes. a work can contain different spaces that interweave, overlap, and intertwine. thus a work is also at the same time a collage of the different spaces in which it was created. it interweaves “something” between places. a movement, a word, a sound, a thought, a special material, a certain color, a structure of acts and things, can be the memory of a present place or one that no longer exists. it could only come into being with and in this place.

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you, unknown i immerse myself in you measure me and you your time becomes my time and my time yours you are also the time that is possible for you the first meeting with you, space, must be in silence. without language. otherwise, language eats you. smoothes you, folds you, distorts you. i meet you for the first time, preferably alone, to feel you, to grasp you, to sense you. in this first silent meeting, are you an infinite possibility or a sad story? or a place of anarchy or a site of an excavation, which penetrates the layers of your skins? the layers of your past that have made you what you are now.

Claudia Bosse

spaces become parts of the thoughts i create within them. they are the outer skin of a possibility. thinking about, thinking in terms of spaces, is something different. when i think in spaces, i become part of them or they become part of me. certain thoughts or imaginings arise only in special spaces. some thoughts are unthinkable in certain spaces, others push or arise only there. these thoughts become actions, words, movements, interventions, light, space. but what affects me in a space? touches my emotions? what exactly is it? is it the spirits of the dead that occupy it? (in indonesia i was told that every supposedly empty space is inhabited by ghosts.) is it the future that speaks from the joints between stones or grout between tiles? or is the space just a material in which my imagination creates assemblages of the improbable? spaces change through the traces that emerge during their processing. every image, every representation, every word becomes part of space, becomes part of its knowledge, its concatenation of material, architecture, images, sounds, and narratives. spaces can be transformed or destroyed, because every process, every function changes its substance, its nature. space is always also a memory. a space can be its various representations. a space leaves a trace in the memory of each individual who has experienced it, because these fragments become part of the consciousness of the space, its reality. how is it possible to decolonize space or spaces from the linearity of their temporal genealogy — its cartographies in the form of plans, maps, illustrations, or photographs? what consequence does it have towards the comprehension of space, if time is not a linear sequence, yet happening simultaneously present, future, and past? if all times of a space are present in the moment in which i find myself within it, how do the times materialize in it, or do they exist at all? or else: how do i grasp space if it always manifests itself at all times at the same time or if it acts in it or with it?

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working with spaces in the city wasteland as archaeology and inbetween space in 2016 i searched for an inner-city wasteland in vienna. a leftover residual space in the city, as a non-functional area that occupies space between times. an urban wasteland with traces of the past, the overgrowth of the present, as an occupation of space. as a possible opening, as a “not-yet”. grasses, plants that grow around piles of stones. an imprint of the absent. on the border wall of this wasteland, there are traces like torn scars. the roof shows itself, stands out, brightly on the darkened firewall. unspectacular. enclosed. borders on all sides. residences built at different times. a city desert, an excavation site, a third landscape with traces of previous construction. remembered stories: an inn, a car repair shop, and a residence with a tree in the courtyard. over 10 weeks, i developed a choreography with five performers on this wasteland. during the development, the choreography became acquainted with local residents, the stones and plants that grew on it. finally, adorned with the large letters “IDEAL PARADISE”, spectators sat or stood around the construction fence that secured the site. a paradisiac arrangement of an inaccessible, protected space. at the end of the choreography, the partition opened, and with the help of the spectators, the letters were carried to the next location of this urban composition IDEAL PARADISE. this fallow ground stayed in my head and asked me questions, demanding further attention. the place claimed another time. i dealt with other times of artistic production: durational settings and the repetitive routines of everyday actions. based on this fallow i created the work 168 stunden (a tribute to every day life and franz erhard walther), in which i occupied this place for 168 hours. two equal-sized areas, each the size of a one-room apartment. each 35m2, laid out with two tons of pebbles, five meters apart. surrounded by walkways three or four meters apart, with some seating platforms for visitors. on each surface, there were the same things: bed, table, chair, armchair, refrigerator, lamp, stove, pot, cutlery, toilet, “shower”. i invited my friend, the architect and artist bettina vismann, to publicly inhabit this place with me for 168 hours, a fallow land of about 800m2, and not to leave the respective “apartment” for that amount of time.

we left our spaces only once a day during the 168 hours to encounter each other performatively with textile objects (as a tribute to franz erhard walther). along with performative scores we measured the “terrain” poetically, before we went back to our parallel spaces. we did not talk to each other. we observed each other and the everyday life that took place around this fallow. we exhibited our everyday actions and observed the everyday life happening around us. a part of our arranged score was a three-hour writing practice twice a day: descriptions of the space. we described what we perceived. with each hour the place changed, it became a delving into its time. the consistency of the place changed, a “liquefying of the walls” that surrounded the place became perceptible. not speaking, not being directly involved in verbal communication, the silence, intensified the experience of the space with its physical interactions, gazes, actions, situations, events. the silence let me sink into the place and its different dimensions. the birds at sunrise, which became louder and louder until it overtook the noise of the street traffic. the movement of the sun, which changed the visible things. the changing temperatures, rain, sun, wetness. silent associations, noticing each other’s presence, over time, direct or indirect complicity with passersby or residents. they were sometimes concerned, or affectionate, or curious. the bedsheet hanging from the windows every morning, thrown out the window, telling the story of the previous night. at sunset, we simultaneously projected our notes and observations of the day onto two firewalls. as performers we appeared and read along, receiving information about each other’s experience in the same place. we shared our experience in the place through the writing that appeared through light on the roughened walls. on walls that bordered this wasteland.

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museum archive, space and knowledge

in the city research and interventions in urban space in kiev traumatic wound of a place another way of dealing with the city was the work applied poetics in urban space, which was created together with the architecture collective urban curators from kiev. this work connected five topologically different places along a subway line with poetic interventions. while researching space and traveling through kiev, i focused on only one of these five sites: majdan nesaleshnosti (“square of independence”), which was the site of the orange revolution in 2004. at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014, the square was again in the news. pictures of barricades of the euromaidan movement, which were erected on it by protesters after the violent suppression of student protests. 80 people killed between february 18-21, 2014, some of them shot by snipers from surrounding rooftops. the union’s house almost completely burned down. trauma of a square, trauma of ukraine, which commemorates the victims of the crackdown on protests with privately erected memorials on trees, or on the street. i wanted to close this place for an hour to create an ephemeral monument. to empty the place, to be able to look at it again, to be able to look at it collectively and remember its events, its experiences. as a reoccupation of the roofs —in memory of the violence inflicted by snipers —people on the roofs should wave colored maps. the tangibly traumatic memories were to be collectively given space and time to create space, to remember. an empty space that one collectively surrounds, encircles, and looks upon in silence, as an attempt to heal a place, as an ephemeral, performative, collective monument. it was not possible to realize the project in this form. nevertheless, i find this grim palimpsest-like space worth mentioning here: as a traumatic public, urban scar.

in 2015 i was invited to develop a work at the weltmuseum vienna. the museum was closed for renovation and reconceptualization at the time. i accepted the invitation under the condition that i would be able to work in the rooms for three months and have access to the collection, the archives, and the curators’ knowledge. the museum is located in the “corps de logis”, adjoining the new burg wing, which was originally built as a residential wing and has housed the este collection since 1912. the heir to the throne franz ferdinand of austria-este brought home around 15,000 objects from his trip around the world in 1892/93, which form the basis of this collection. the museum of ethnology was opened in these rooms in 1928. the rooms on the first floor were made available to me, each about 110m2 and connected to each other by wing doors. the rooms were completely empty, without exhibition objects, only occupied by mostly glassless, metal, massive exhibition showcases, commissioned by franz ferdinand. occasionally there were exhibition signs or photographs on the floor. i had chosen six adjoining rooms for the second step to IDEAL PARADISE, and during my three-month residency i had access to the rooms, the archives, and insights into their specific arrangements of the collection objects, as well as the possibility to discuss with the curators there their knowledge and their approaches to ethnography, the collection and the regions subordinated to them, which, curatorially partitioned in the museum, formed the context of the confrontation. the organizational structure, the intellectual and material stock became part and subject of my artistic practice. the quest in these spaces lasted for these three months — while being faced with the (institutional) restrictions and different understandings of the curators and conservators (who see themselves as long-standing advocates of the objects). together with the curators, i inspected the archives, the different parts of the archives, and tried to understand their narratives of the collection. i was interested in the history of the collection and the various and overwritten assignments of individual objects over the years. different time documents of colonial thinking. i was interested in the order of the archive, the arrangement of the goods, the personal narratives, and how an object became part of the collection.

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transpositions loading and sorting: from the mail loading station in düsseldorf to the national film studios in jakarta

the spaces i wanted to fill with my installation were linked to the invisible spaces of this museum, and to the people working there and their experiences. the empty vitrines of the exhibition collection corresponded with the crammed and stacked shelves in the underground archive, marked with numbers and labels. how were these vitrines once filled? how will they be filled one day? for my installation, the empty vitrines were filled with objects from the collection, and my objects, which stood indistinguishably next to each other. i tried to put new orders, critical hegemonies, and narratives into these spaces: with an assemblage of objects, sounds, voices, light, performers, and my questions about terrorism, violence, appropriation, racism, sexism, animate objects and rituals, etc. i was looking for a confrontation with the objects of the collection. i was looking for a confrontation with the production of cultural identity/ies, a confrontation with the narrative of the argued object or evidence culture of Western ethnology, which tries to produce identity through objects of representation.

in 2016, a work unexpectedly emerged. it was supposed to become a different work. it became an ode to the empty mail loading station in düsseldorf. a place where mail and parcels from all over the world arrived, were loaded and sorted before being distributed throughout the city and surrounding areas. a place of analog work and loading processes. a place bearing signs of this work that had since been demolished. this place became the site of the multi-part, multi-year series IDEAL PARADISE, which connected many cities, spaces, formats, and contexts. gathering, sorting, and reloading: this space created this work, the last IDEAL PARADISE, and let different pasts and aspects of the work series meet in this space to (find) a present with the traces of its past. a present of the already-no-longer-and-stillthere. the performative composition in this space began with an installation, which one entered individually and through a narrow corridor: voices of interviews from egypt and athens to videos with material from the weltmuseum vienna, which mixed with the architecture, with my objects —spaces, were different theses, questions were explored individually. also images from the photo archive in vienna, with pin-ups and cat pictures on a leftover pinboard of a former office room. upon entering the hall, low bass tones rumbled the windows of the issue hall, a group of 12 people in colorful wool sweaters looked down on you and watched you step out. you could move up to a cord dividing the room until, deep at the end of the room, you could see silver shapes slowly and endlessly stepping into the room through a swath of mist beneath the wool sweaters. a small, old woman, also in a silver suit and flesh-colored mask, dropped the partition. she opened the room for the audience and drove a cart into the depth of the room. a procession with carried objects led everyone through a dark, narrow tunnel to a room separated by fences. it became narrower and narrower. the material was laid out on the floor and the room was limited even more by the performers and finally, the fence was torn down: the last part of the choreography with texts, singing, movements and personal biographies ended in a huge hall. after another stopover in germany at the tanzplattform in essen 2018, i was invited to present this work in jakarta.

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Claudia Bosse

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transpositions jakarta: searching for a space the experience of a city without sidewalks. tender choreographies of an incredible number of cars and motorcycles on the streets. dances of togetherness. each of the one- to two-hour car rides was for me in this short time an instructive exercise in mindfulness and fluid togetherness. this dealing with dysfunctional traffic regulations and state order taught me something that was not familiar to me. we visit the city: monuments that transfigure history with fictional dioramas of certain ideological narratives into “provable” facts. but i am also interested in the outskirts of the city, the edges of the settlements that are not intended for representation. the harbor with illegal workers. the sprawling garbage next to the harbor village floating in the water, on the edge of the kampung akuarium, evacuated by the police. the children swimming, perhaps looking for fish in this certainly contaminated oily water. the shacks in front of a newly built skyscraper with someone —perhaps a worker—peeking out. the dump with broken fragments of carousel animals from an amusement park. and so forth. but we are looking for a space for a work that already exists, and should be adapted for the local and spatial context: a space that can become a local resonance space for the transfer of this work. a space that is a decaying document of history and at the same in former times a venue for analog work. we visit some colonial buildings, but it seems that this context is not right. finally, we visit the site of the former national film studios of indonesia, which have not been used for 20 years and are now tentatively being used again. these studios were built in jakarta in the 1930s by the dutch. propaganda films were produced there during the japanese occupation. the studios became the most important film studios of the new republic of indonesia, which declared itself independent in 1945; finally officially approved in 1949. after suharto’s coup, entertainment films were made there, as well as an important propaganda film: a fiction of his legitimate takeover of power. visually stunning, this film legitimizes sukarno’s removal from power with bloody anti-communist propaganda. this film propagated the narrative that led up to two million deaths in 1965.

i was interested in the partly dilapidated architecture, the leftover objects, and film reels. i wanted to work with this space, where the images of national identity were produced under different ideological premises. a large part of the studios and laboratories are ruins, with remnants of open film reels bursting with negatives. the studios have not been used since 1998, since the abdication of the new order regime under general suharto. recently, small films were shot in the still more or less intact complex or advertisements for cafe. a detail: i asked the participating 10 indonesian artists to recall films shot in these studios acoustically. one example was sukarno’s speech at the africanasian bandung conference of 1955. an important document and undertaking of the decolonial movement of the formerly colonized countries that invented the concept of the third world as a self-conscious alternative between the two political blocs. in my production it was spoken chorally by the whole team, gradually dissolving into a polyphonic chorus: with recollections of music, dialogues and sounds, from films produced in this studio.

pandemic break and new spaces frontal on stage for my first solo work, i approached the tanzquartier vienna. i needed the institution, as an obligatory call, to realize this work. i wanted to publish this thinking with my body in space. therefore i rehearsed in different spaces and studios. each space changed the work. i planned an installative landscape that could be walked through by spectators. its stations would link material and choreographic actions. experiencing and thinking in the moment with the spectators. i wanted to decide in the moment of the performance, from which object or action, how and to which one i changed. pleasurable physical thinking in space, the design of an energetic narrative of action as a spatial composition with and within the present audience. an evacuation of the present, as the subtitle of ORACLE and SACRIFICE would reveal. but then came the pandemic and the constraints that came with it: constraints on the material, the organs i could work with, and the prescribed physical distancing. so after 25 years of experimental theater within shared spaces, i decided to develop a frontal stage work and to include these specific conditions of space. i chose a central-perspective, warped, space-within-a-space situation, a white box within the black box of the theater space. to exhibit the materials and the themes i used and to make visible the process of transformation, from one state of a material to another.

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pandemic break and new spaces in the woods

i changed the modes of working: after experimenting with material and temporality, the momentary narration or sequence of actions, the necessity of a spatial-temporal sequence arises with the frontal stage space, which works perspectively with the closeness and distance to the audience. i developed a chronology in a completely illuminated space, which plays with the entering-into-the-foreground and entering-into-the-background of the present objects, organs and my body. the regime of the perspective gaze of the now seated audience also changes the sensitive penetration in the different encounters with and into my body: the time of transformations, the time of sensations, which informs me in certain ways, the progression of movement. reading in the flesh. this frontal arrangement tilts my body. i have to reclaim the three-dimensionality of space again and again, by remaining a body and not becoming a one-sided surface: a body that feels, thinks, and perceives. the frontality pours a time image or a time sequence into the space. this space of representations and symbols expects, wants to recognize, to assign. but i want to withdraw the transformations and the symbols again, to liquefy them. an oracle. the conquest of different qualities. a challenge and yet movements, states, a dialogue that wants to be shared and seen. the attention of the rising rows of spectators squeezes my space because it defines itself in height. one space. two spaces that want to become one space again. to be seen. the co-presence of the objects. the objects look back, they do not collapse in being an object, but they exist, they look and change in time. they change to each other in time, as I change to myself and to them.

i want to develop this work ORACLE and SACRIFICE, which was first presented in the black box of tanzquartier vienna, in the forest. expose and question in this space. confront movements and thoughts with pieces of the forest: trees, roots, and other bodies, the knowledge of the newly involved. a space whose boundary is the earth and the root soil, or the sky above the treetops. a space defined by the rhythm of the wind in the trees and other growth: a lifting and lowering. a space defined by the rhythm of its roots and its dead wood — which decomposes and overgrows, becomes food for other living things. becomes another matter. this space is always different, in every season and time of day, in every type of weather. this space has different formations, accessible from different sides. accessible from all sides, it has many directions, many functions, and participations, territories, and cohabitations. walkers pass through it. the forest harbors much that is beyond human perception, not visible to the human eye, or audible to the ear, but perceptible nonetheless. the forest is inhabited by various species that make it habitable for themselves, that feed on it, fly over it, burrow through it. the multiplicity of the living material, which changes permanently and to each other, tunes this space, which is a space of dependencies. it is the chronicle of the interventions of humankind, of the climate, of the air, of the animals, of the plants, of the fungi. i can read it, feel it, hear it, grasp it in 100 different ways. it eludes permanently and calls up cultural myths, which dwell in the barks, roots, and holes of the dead trees. it is material polyphony, a multi-layered order. it is my childhood, my fears, and my dreams about the varied and animated nature of matter. it is the place where forces gather that elude rational human orders of things. it can be analyzed scientifically, but will never fully be grasped. this place has a time, but no duration, because it has another time that transcends duration. because it is. a place it is with a time it is but with no duration it is with a time that exceeds the duration it is

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In between times

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FR: Just out of curiosity, how come you started with these massive installations and this idea of covering buildings, entire buildings?

IM: FR: We’re interested in the idea and meaning of working contextually. How can that be thought of, and from which perspectives has it been thought of, and does it really make any sense to continue with the discourse of the need to be contextual?

In that sense, I was thinking of your very famous jute sack installations, especially the urban ones at Documenta 14 and the Venice Biennale and others.

What I’m very interested in is the performativity of those pieces within the urban. Can you talk about if you also consider them as a performance gesture within the urban?

IM: Certainly, I do. I guess at Documenta, it was one of the first times that I started looking at the production aspect of the work in a performative sense because up until then I had mostly been producing the material/ the work in public spaces, as well as railways and other spaces, because I was interested in how the labour done at these sites combined with the residues within these sites and how this was informing the aesthetic elements within the material and also the structural aspect of the material.

At Documenta, the idea was to use the Syntagma Square in Athens, which, when there’s a protest there, is normally occupied by numerous bodies. This time around I wanted to focus more on these sacks, which have been through a series of global transactions, have carried many different commodities, and somehow reflect upon the conditions of the postmodern working man. For me, it was highly performative that within this urban context it allowed people to have some kind of interaction with the material. I never wanted the material to be separated from people — just in the case of an art installation which covers a building and that’s it.

But then also, when it goes on to cover a building, there a relationship is created between the material and the building itself: in a way, the composition that is created and how certain holes in the materials are left. So, when the wind blows, it somehow goes into the material and allows it to almost dance. Sometimes, the material extends into the pavements where pedestrians cross.

For me, it’s performative in many different ways, from the production to the way that it’s put together in a site.

When I was in art school in Kumasi, in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, I studied painting at the College of Arts. At the time, there was a new group of professors who had started teaching radical ways of making art, and they were encouraging students to go to town, to go into the market spaces, abandoned spaces, to find inspiration.

The previous generations were somehow stuck to the old ways of making art with a modernist approach. If you had to make a painting, it had to be on canvas, it had to be in a certain material, the format, even the figure, had to have a certain form.

We were using Ground Zero as a starting point.

So, the idea of going to town and thinking that everyone in the city is intelligent about how they interact with people on a daily basis, and they always use the arts in some form or another to be able to display whatever they have. In going to the African markets, you realise that a woman displays in many different forms: charcoal, fabrics, containers, even the way in which the market is organised. The idea was to go to the urban and rural, everywhere, just to find inspiration.

I started off by collecting materials from market spaces and working with the workers there. One early installation was covering a pile of food and charcoal in the market. Then I went on to covering some bridges, and then I started thinking what the possibilities would be if I somehow extended this to architecture, buildings.

I wanted to be as ambitious as I could. Normally, artists are somehow afraid to try something big and fail. But in our curriculum, failure was the key, it was the starting point.

I started looking at these massive spaces trying to work things out. I didn’t teach the work how to grow.

I think it was the other way around — the work taught me how to make, to continue working with it. I would set a precedent and once I began to see the revelations within the work — because the group of collaborators I was working with was really extensive, from construction workers to carpenters, and they would make decisions in the work which I had no control over.

Those decisions were crucial. It created new forms of aesthetics that I couldn’t have had without this process.

The city, with all its chaos and problems and conditions, was what gave me this courage to be able to at least work at this magnitude.

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Ibrahim Mahama & Frida Robles

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FR: I’m interested in your connection with time and material and your understanding of temporality when working both with the material and the city itself, I would say, thinking the urban as a material in itself.

IM: In the 20th century, most parts of Ghana featured the largest producers of cocoa in the world.

Considerable capital was made from cocoa, which was used in the post-independence infrastructure, like buildings, factories, and other features attributed to Kwame Nkrumah, our first president. Before that, the cocoa had been mostly exploited by the British Empire.

In the early ‘60s, the African Union was founded, and the first nuclear power plant in Ghana was built.

The silos, a group of buildings, were built by Eastern European architects, factories were built — all these programs were completely abandoned in 1966 when Kwame Nkrumah — the head of the Pan-Africanist movement— was overthrown. Suddenly, we fell back into another time.

It’s almost as if we went back into the 12th century or something, both on an archaeological level and also on a material level. The jute sack was a material that had been employed and brought into Ghana by the Ghana Cocoa Board to buy cocoa from farmers, take the seeds to the ports, and offload these seeds into containers, which would leave the shore of Ghana to Switzerland or wherever. The cocoa that Ghana generates translates into a revenue of over 50 billion dollars every year globally, but Ghana only gets one billion of that money. During the time of Nkrumah, the idea was to industrialise so that we could process these commodities and create more value for the system.

Now, when the bag leaves, the silo is abandoned.

The sacks take the beans, and then the beans leave, the bag stays behind, it goes through a series of different commodities, processes — it comes to a point where it no longer has a value. So, the silo in Tamale, which I bought and converted into a museum, is just the beginning of many silos I am planning to acquire from the states and convert into institutions all over the country.

FR: It is interesting how by covering buildings, a whole infrastructure, you also create an understanding of the materiality of the building itself and how it is historically charged. It is exciting to see them as an urban gesture, especially in Western cities where you don’t normally see these comments been played out on such a big scale — as an urban-scale gesture. I’m interested in these different scales of the work, the temporality of the jute sacks, but that temporality is also connected with the temporality of the mortar, and the colonial history behind these buildings themselves.

IM: I think that we’re somehow at a point in human history where people do not take time to be able to draw or make connections between spaces, between materials; when people are drinking their coffee or hot chocolate or buying whatever commodities from the shop or supermarket, they don’t really think about the labour that is connected to them. Also, when they end up having a debate about immigrants or people coming in to work — it almost seems to them as if these people are invading their space or something like that.

For me, it was very important to open up these conversations between the imperial factors versus the idea of the common — the common history that we all share as humanity. I guess the fragility of the material is very important. It breaks and decays when it’s installed.

Each time that it’s installed in one space, it doesn’t leave it in the same way. It leaves either faded or torn or broken, part of it gets lost. I guess I’m interested in how this reflects upon the temporality of things, because we tend to hold on to things almost as if they were our core values.

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In between times

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Ibrahim Mahama & Frida Robles

FR: I’m also curious about your work in connection to the development of the Savannah Centre of Contemporary Art (SCCA) and RedClay in Tamale. For example, the parade of aircrafts going around the city, which would then accommodate artistic work. I was looking at some videos and for me, it’s a completely performative gesture, this act of creating a space on an urban or even global scale, because this act can be read from a very aerial perspective. How do you view this space in Tamale? What is your relation to the city itself and this space as a comment or as a generator around the city, and not just contained in one space?

IM: Tamale is an interesting place. I was born there but I didn’t grow up there. I’ve lived in Accra for most of my life. When I was a child, every once in a while, during a vacation we would come to Tamale to visit the family. When I was at university, I would come more often. In 2014, I made a conscious decision to go back to Tamale to create the studio because at the time, I was just finishing my MFA, and we had read all these books on capital like the ones by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Walter Benjamin, and I was beginning to think about the artist as a producer, how the artists need to be within their own space. So, I thought, okay… In Ghana everyone wants to do something in Accra. I said to myself, why not just go to Tamale. If you have a studio in a village somewhere, at least it will influence a generation of people there.

So, I went to Tamale, started building a studio and having conversations with the older generation of artists. I said to myself, why not convert this studio into an institution where we can focus on retrospectives and resurrect the practices of older artists? That’s how SCCA was born. I also then decided, why not present the institution or the studio as a gift to the city?

I started expanding the spaces, building, collecting archives, building archival spaces, resident spaces, exhibition spaces, bringing the airplanes… There’s no reason why we should occupy only four-sided spaces.

You can occupy any space. You can occupy the silo, you can occupy old court buildings, cemeteries. So, I started buying these old airplanes in Accra and then transporting them on the ground by road. Bringing them was very performative because I was very interested in how the same collaborators for my installations — truck drivers and material transporters — were the same kind of people that I was working with to transport these airplanes.

The main idea of getting the airplanes was to convert them into classrooms for kids to learn about drone technologies, biochemistry, and many other things. We had to exhume the airplanes, take out all the seats from the fuselages and make them into voids.

For me, all of this is performative, but it’s also geared towards a long-term effect of creating change.

I remember Okwui Enwezor always used to talk about change in his work. I was able to get a silo as part of the institution now, and I’ve been looking at this old cemetery, we could convert it into some kind of an archive or library space. There’s also an old Olympic-site swimming pool, which is located about 200 kilometres north of Tamale. I’m also in conversation to complete the pool so that we can use it to teach children how to swim on a professional level.

I guess I’ve gotten to a point in art where I have realised that art could be anything — even teaching children how to swim on a level that allows them to expand their world view or imagination, or to penetrate other spaces. It’s going towards a way of changing perception. When you travel to these communities around the city, you’ll find all these old warehouses that were used for storing food but have been abandoned.

The idea I’ve been negotiating with the chiefs and community members is to convert these old storage spaces into parts of institutional spaces where we will use them as pedagogical spaces, classrooms — we would have a projector in those spaces, so it would revive cinema culture within that area.

By this time you realise that, in the next 20-30 years, you will have created this very cultural, vibrant city. But it will not happen if you do not start from somewhere.

Also, you don’t want it to be elitist. You want it to be something that grows organically, that actually belongs to the people. So, you have to do it in such a way that people will grow, or their kids will grow into it. By the time they are my age, it will become part of their thinking and vocabulary. But for now, no one believes that someone would invest such an amount of money into creating institutions like that in a place like Tamale.

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Bios

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Bios

Hakim Bah is a Guinean writer and dramaturg. He holds a master’s degree in directing and dramaturgy from the University Paris-Ouest Nanterre. His texts have been read, created and performed in different places in Africa and Europe.

His work has received numerous awards (RFI Théâtre Prize, Prix des Journées Lyon des Auteurs de Théâtre, Prix d’écriture Théâtrale de la ville de Guerande, Prix des Inédits d’Afrique et d’Outremer and others) and scholarships (Institut Français, Beaumarchais, CNL, ARTCENA, Région IDF and others). His plays have been staged by Frédéric Fisbach, Jacques Allaire, Cédric Brossard, Pierre Vincent, Guy Theunissen, Souleymane Bah, Aristide Tarnagda, Imad Assaf, Rouguiatou Camara. His texts have been published by Lansman Éditeur, Théâtre Ouvert and Passages. He co-directs the company Paupières Mobiles with Diane Chavelet and is the artistic director of the festival Univers des Mots.

Jean Christophe Lanquetin is an artist and scenographer, living between Paris and Dakar. He teaches at La Haute école des arts du Rhin (Strasbourg), and is co-founder with François Duconseille of the Urban Scénos residency project. His practice shifts constantly between choreography, theater, installation, curatorship, experimental processes, and more, via multiple collaborations with artists, mostly from the African continent. Lanquetin’s practice, whether collaborative or solo (using video, drawing, photography and installation), seeks to unpack the notions of the stage, (re)presentation and spectatorship, via context-based projects and art-based research.

François Duconseille is a visual artist and a scenographer. In parallel to his individual career, he initiated with Jean-Christophe Lanquetin the Urban Scénos project, which questions through artistic acts the complexity of cities in the global world (Douala, Alexandria, Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Dakar, Port-au-Prince, Strasbourg…), these residences are organised with different collectives of artists. He is also in charge with Jean-Christophe Lanquetin of the scenography department and the research program of art in public spaces Play>Urban at HEAR, Art School of Strasburg.

Baerbel Mueller is an architect and researcher based in Austria and Ghana.

She is head of the [applied] Foreign Affairs lab at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, which investigates spatial and cultural phenomena in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle-East, and founder of nav_s baerbel mueller [navigations in the field of architecture and urban research within diverse cultural contexts]. Her work comprises architecture, urban research, installations, scenography, and curatorial projects, and has been widely exhibited and awarded.

His contributions have ranged from airing the case of amphibians, livelihood, imperiled at the opening of Ateliers de la pensée #2 in Dakar, November 2017, to being the protagonist of the recent world-wide performance labeled The Trojan Donkey curated by the Karachi-based artist Amine Gulgee, to taking visitors on a smart journey into a palm tree and its red oil entropic saga with his voice for Moving Plants in Francfort, Lionel Manga is a practitioner of the late Michel Serres mobile point of view thinking strategy.

Author of L’Ivresse du papillon, a pictorial journey through the Cameroonian and contemporary art scene, the Douala-based free electron looks at the world through philosophy, mathematics, quantum mechanics and molecular biology, among others.

Eric Androa Mindre Kolo is a Congolese visual and performance artist. His work speaks of the body as a transmitter and receiver of conflicts, pleasures and problems that cross the world. His practice also questions current events with the eyes of a ‘Mikilist’ (“who has seen the world”, in Lingala). He has worked with Steven Cohen, Esther Ferrer, Sello Pesa and others. He has participated in international festivals such as Scénographies Urbaines (Kinshasa, Dakar, Port au Prince), Festival Nouvelles Danses, Festival INACT, rencontres Ville[s] en Jeu[x], Les Récréâtrales (Ouagadougou) and Univers des Mots (Conakry). Currently he is curator of the exhibition Kinshasa Chroniques Urbaines for the Musée international des Arts Modestes (2018) and Cité de l’architecture & du Patrimoine (2020).

Frida Robles is an artist and curator based in Vienna. Her practice focuses on an essayistic approach paying special attention to site/context specificity, streetbased knowledge, the subversive character of imagination, and interconnectivity. She has been a resident artist and curator in different cultural spaces in Austria, Sweden, Germany, USA, Portugal, Senegal and India.

Since 2017, she has been co-teaching and co-editing publications at the [applied] Foreign Affairs lab. She was a fellow at the Sessions 1 and 2 of the Raw Academy.

She is currently conducting her PhD investigation on ancestry representation and history healing in contemporary performance art in Southern Africa at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with support from the JUMEX Foundation.

Claudia Bosse is a choreographer, director and artist. She lives in Vienna and Berlin and is artistic director of theatercombinat.

Her work focuses on different forms of violence, history and utopia. She thinks of her expansive choreographies in space as art works created by temporary communities, which incorporate myths, rituals, texts, language, choruses and objects. She has held many workshops and has lectured at several academies and universities. In 2020, she showed the last IDEAL PARADISE in Jakarta, which was also invited to Deutsche Tanzplattform in Essen, and thyestes brüder! kapital in Vienna and Düsseldorf.

Ibrahim Mahama is an artist who lives and works in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, Ghana. Failure and delay through specific forms inform his choice of sites, he believes the works do not only occupy but are also occupied within the works/objects.

Residues and points of chaos registered as marks within the forms he selects present us with alternative perspectives of looking into the materials/labour conditions of society. His work has been included in the 56, 57 and 58 Venice Biennale, documenta 14 Athens and Kassel and many others. In 2019 he opened SCCA Tamale and in 2020 RedClay, are artist-run spaces, built and dedicated to experimental forms, education and retrospectives of artistic practices. His current interests use specific architectural forms inspired by the potentialities and failures of modernity.

Process Process Process Process Process Process Process Process Process Process

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Encounters with Hakim Bah, Jean Christophe Lanquetin, Dorine Mokha M2 / On (staging) Objects / Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles Translocations / Daniel Aschwanden

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Encounter with Jean Christophe Lanquetin Vienna, May 2019

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Dorine Mokha, Fleuve dans le ventre Schauspielhaus Vienna, June 26, 2019

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Encounter with Dorine Mokha Vienna, June 2019

Dorine Mokha (1989-2021) was a Congolese dancer-choreographer and writer. Associated with Studios Kabako, he worked on several collective projects (NO THERE YES MAYBE HERE, Trio Sans Titre, Nzela ya Mayi). From 2013 to 2019, he worked on an autobiographical dance trilogy entitled Entre Deux. Mokha collaborated with artist Sammy Baloji on numerous projects, and was part of the Lubumbashi Biennial in 2020. He was co-director of the ART’gument Project and a member of the On-Trade-Off collective.

In 2020, he was appointed a laureate of the The Young African Leaders Initiative Network for his work tackling homophobia and human rights issues.

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Encounter with Hakim Bah Vienna, October 2019

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

M² / Acupuncturing Vienna You receive a m² piece of white foil (M²) and a three-hour assignment*: 1. Listen to and engage with VIENNA physically.

2. Create a space: Locate yourself and your M².

3. Document it.

4. Listen to and engage with VIENNA socially.

5. Create a situation: Locate yourself and share your M².

6. Document it.

7. Upon completion, reflect on your intervention. * Instructions inspired by Baerbel Mueller’s ‘listening kumasi’ (2002), an imaginary project for the city of Kumasi in Ghana, based on the idea of creating several “spaces for communication”, spread throughout the city like acupuncture points and related to each other by invisible traces.

A temporary, performative intervention on a 1:1 scale was installed as a testing project: for a short period, a one square metre piece of red foil — as a space-generating tool, metric system, and ex-territorial space — was implemented at each point and field. ** Instruction order inspired by Anton Vidokle: Give and Take (for Lawrence Weiner). *** The instructions — including instruction order inspired by Anton Vidokle — were executed in Venice in 2016, as part of the Venice Biennale Summer School ‘Cognitive Adventures in the Digital Age’ instructed by Baerbel Mueller.

Baerbel Mueller

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

The Intrinsic Magic of Objects “Each leaf that may fall in this garden here, and that passes from the situation of being a natural leaf to becoming an object, moving from here to there, adopts a position, which participates in the definition of the whole ensemble in front of us. And beyond this location, the whole peninsula of Dakar, and beyond the peninsula the whole continent, and beyond the continent the whole world. It is not a question of interactivity, neither is it even a question of interference. It is a question of the inter-relationships of living things…”

Issa Samb Every object occupies a space; this space conveys meaning, stories, the past or speculations on the future. Objects can be understood as an aggregate of actions and relations. Objects can be understood as a minimal sample of a staged story in space — if we allow ourselves to talk about the theatricality of the world in extremely broad terms.

To think of the importance of objects within rituals, memories and their relationship to theater was the narrative thread running through this activity.

The team members were asked to think of an object that was meaningful to them, which had a “personal” story linked to them. They were asked to bring these objects and share the stories of the object with the group. The idea behind these shared narrations was to highlight the fact that the world that surrounds us is already charged with meanings and that those meanings can be used when thinking about theater in the public realm. A stone is not merely a stone: it came from a faraway land or it was the element with which a window was previously broken. As Bruno Latour notes, objects, too, have agency.

To finalize the activity, the team members were asked to come up together with a format in which to display these objects in a public space in Vienna.

Frida Robles

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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M2 / On (staging) Objects

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Baerbel Mueller & Frida Robles

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Translocations

How to transfer memory-spaces? How to play with contextual site specificity?

These were questions at the core of a two-day workshop at IoA’s square, with the aim of preparing an installation later in that very same space to host an [a]FA Conakry Play>Urban panel reflecting on the notion of context, and at the same time, to inscribe and translate experiences and memories brought back from Conakry, and translocate the spatial gesture of the Portique to Vienna.

Participants were invited to go beyond the boundaries of dry conceptual thinking, instead diving into body space exercises exploring the space and question its parameters. As a first approach, participants were asked to develop communication structures in relation to the architectural components of the space. Later, each participant created a paper installation aimed at integrating significant personal experiences and memories from their time in Conakry. Finally, the space was appropriated with projections using all available surfaces: from the given architecture of the space, the built installations and last but not least, using their own bodies as projection surfaces. In a follow-up, the work with textiles as projection surfaces was explored.

Daniel Aschwanden

Daniel Aschwanden is a Swiss performer, choreographer, director and curator. He uses the body to initiate performative cartographies, offering new ways of looking at chosen contexts. His focus shifts between questions of (performing) arts in public space with participatory approaches and questions of the role of art in urban development processes. He makes use of contemporary dance vocabulary to create artistic pieces. For him, the body becomes the place to negotiate questions of nature and culture, timeliness and consciousness. Aschwanden is a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and a founding member of the APL (Angewandte Performance Laboratory).

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Daniel Aschwanden

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Translocations

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Daniel Aschwanden

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Daniel Aschwanden

Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections Reflections

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A Telling / Zach Beale The Strange City / Carmen Egger The City as Theatre / Ivan Jakaric Terrain, l’organisme, présence / Oliver Alunovic Un terrain de jeu / Gabrielle Ritz La Ferme Kaporo / Anton Grandcoin Dairy: The Portique / Anni Dai

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A Telling

It always began with breakfast. As a team, we developed a common ceremony, with aspects satisfying each of our needs, our individual rituals merged into one. For some, the ritual was coffee, a morning necessity.

For some, the ritual became the search for food: daily bread, fruit, eggs, or whatever struck a fancy at a market, for a good price. For some, eating was crucial. Together, our rituals merged into a ceremony, each and every day, bringing cohesion to what would be a chaotic series of events punctuating the effort to pull off what would emerge as our Portique. Each breakfast was a moment of peace, conversation, and reflection.

Portique did not arise as a result of a strict, linear process. Rather, the project came into focus through a series of conversations, negotiations, and emerging technical requirements, and lived as a result of the manifestation of those limitations and discussions into form.

One of the early motivators of the project was discussion: internally and externally, and perhaps within ourselves, re-evaluating our roles in the context and within our group. While still in Vienna, our group undertook a combination of tasks, some performative, some analytical, and some personal, the main goal of which was to not just understand a new perspective on context, but also to understand each other, to allow us to be more comfortable with discussion amongst ourselves, and outside of ourselves.

From our kickoff in Vienna, we learned how to express ourselves within a group of people from extremely different backgrounds, each with different perspectives, in a way that was not aggressive, but rather progressive.

Through stimulating conversation, we developed an internal repertoire that was the basis for our communication on Portique. ‘Starting from nothing’ was the exact condition of Portique: without any understood limitations, how do we create? Through discussion, we discovered boundaries, practicalities, and concepts which started to form the idea within a collaborative field of minds. Through research into context and materiality, we discovered potential.

Our first introduction to the real, contextual constraints emerged at an initial visit to Studio Kirah. We decided to begin our own design initiative, rather than aid individual productions. This was a suggestion that we agreed on, and that freed us to work autonomously.

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Zach Beale studies architecture under Greg Lynn at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His work focuses on the social and economic ramifications of ecology and technology, and how sustainable and lasting communities can develop during a time of climactic crisis through the aid of architecture. He focuses on the use of technology and digital tools to develop new methods of design and visualization that compliment his efforts at researching viable future societies.

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Zach Beale

A second discussion arose on the same day, one of context. As a group, we visited several sites near the studio, some of which had been promising from our research in Vienna, which had been aided by some helpful information from François. Each of these sites were vastly different from one another: the Terrain, being wide, un-cordoned, and open, the Cafe Kipe, being walled and small, the ocean, being the edge of the city. Several other sites around and between these conditions also arose: some urban, some residential, each with varying degrees of openness and space. The struggle naturally emerged of how to choose a site, or whether we wanted to choose all of the sites, each option laying a different set of rules on the table: permanence vs mobility, that began to influence our intervention.

Time is limited. And it always seems to go by faster than expected: with only nine days to go after the first day, an intense brainstorming session was necessary. With knowledge of the discussions that had prepared us for this stage of the process, we began creating in earnest, not leaving the apartments unless necessary. A makeshift office emerged in one space, around the communal table in the dining room, with a bare wall for pinup behind. Open windows allowed air to circulate through the stifling space; pens, pencils, paper, and a broken old laptop were our tools.

Exercises in conceptualization began through the process of drawing and sketching, punctuated by discussion as ideas evolved from one moment to the next. We had adapted the architectural process familiar to us in Vienna to our new office. Pinups of sketches followed by rounds of presentation and critique, through sweat, breaks for thought, bottles of water, and cigarettes on the balcony. The heat of conceptualization was matched by the heat of the apartment.

Round after round, certain constraints were agreed upon, forming a geometry that would emerge as the final Portique. Primary among these was the notion of transgressing borders, bridging the performance space and the public space. The final object would need to be a link over or through a wall, interacting with either a doorway or a perimeter around a closed space containing a performance. Emerging also was the notion of portability, that just one site for the installation wasn’t sufficient, it should manifest itself in as many locations as possible.

Materials were chosen to explore based upon our research in Vienna.

Should the frame for this object, whatever it may be, come from mangrove wood? Steel members welded on the Terrain? Plastic piping? Wood is lighter, but mangrove joints may not be so durable. Plastic piping may be hard to come by. The final choice was steel.

Three decisions then emerged in parallel to the discussion of the actual form of the piece: Steel, Portable, Bridge. As these conditions emerged, so the design evolved. Beginning from radically different positions, round after round of discussion, we gradually drew together into a basic shape: a pair of vertical frames spaced apart from each other, held together by a membrane above. What was this membrane? In our research, we discussed netting and textile, and the performative implications of both.

Was pattern important? Was shade?

Often from within our enclave, the outside world would interrupt, bringing the reality of our presence to bear. Children playing below would make a racket and get our attention. We’d run out of water and need to take a trip to a shop, a wail from outside would signal a death in the family.

Even being new to our environment, the realities of working in an unfamiliar context became clearer in bursts: we were interlopers, and needed to behave and design with conscious care.

Colors became clearer to us, through a discussion of our research: Gold? White? Red? Pink? The final design began to emerge as such: two portal frames, leaned outward from each other at an angle of 70 degrees to the ground, or positioned perpendicular to the ground in a way which was reconfigurable between the two positions, held together by two membranes of thread, each in a criss-crossing pattern from one portal frame to the other, one above stretched tight, receiving the tension of the leaning portal frames, one below hanging loose, each with a fringe of thread hanging on opposite sides of the form, in front of the portal frames.

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A Telling

Our steel tube construction method proved beneficial to the design: steel tubes could slip in and out of each other, allowing our system to be demountable, and the membranes of thread to be rolled into a spool to be transported from site to site. The form came down to a few parts only: two frames made from posts and a pair of cross members each, these members would support a textile, and could be rolled into the opposite cross member for portability. The portal frames would be attached to base plates, each with two sleeves for different construction configurations. Finally, for fear of the unpredictability of such a delicate tension system, a few concrete blocks attached to thread, ensuring the system didn’t fall inward.

Sulieman, the chief of the Terrain, was kind enough to introduce us to a group of welders on his territory. Through mediated discussion, and relying on some extremely helpful translation, we exchanged drawings, a method of communication almost more helpful than language, and developed the ideas of steel joining methods, as well as member sizes, and welding techniques.

We needed to see more, to push us through our roadblocks. It was Sunday, so as a team, we decided to find our way to the city center, to take a break from the intensity. Conakry is an extremely long city, and we were located roughly in the middle, our destination being on the far Western side, in the old colonial area. After discussion with the motorbike taxis, we decided on a location and a price. Though we didn’t all quite make it to our destination correctly, the day was still informative, if not extremely startling: motorbike taxis at interstate speeds were a new phenomenon for the team.

We visited a museum in the old town, dedicated to Guinea’s history, where we found an example of an old Guinean loom, with two rods holding threads, which were gathered into a knot at the base of the loom.

The delicate movement of the threads in the moving air was enticing, the membrane formed by the weaving pattern eye-catching. This could be our textile.

Welding lasted long into the night, darkness sprayed with fire, under minimal lighting. If the power went, so would the welding, but as long as they could see, the welders continued. We worked together to develop techniques for assembling such a structure, using templates, temporary attachments, and makeshift supports.

Excursions to the Kaporo market yielded a sampling of thread for our Portique. We were able to gather a small amount from a surly vendor, who required slightly more than a simple translation to interact with, but we had a start. More would have to be acquired from the medina, the largest market in the city, and one of the largest in Western Africa.

The medina is a city in and of itself, within the megacity of Conakry.

A seemingly infinite maze with one goal: materials. There was a set of rules unclear to us, and an unfathomable pattern to the activity and movement.

A few questions to the locals in regards to directions through the maze, and thread was found in the bustle of the exhilarating corridors of the mega market.

Having a few of our components at hand, we began testing in earnest.

First, how would we tie the thread? What kinds of knots would let us control length, remain tight, and result in a fringe? How hard would it be to work with even lengths between two cross members? Using mangroves as a stand-in for our steel tubes, and fighting against the quick approach of darkness at the end of the day, we tested the creation of a pair of simple portal frames, strung over the perimeter wall of Studio Kirah. It was immediately apparent that the lengths of thread had to be exact, or the frames would hang from each other incorrectly. The ground was uneven, any construction of supports for running our threads between our horizontal members had to be perfectly level, or the threads would be incorrectly tensioned. We had a problem.

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Zach Beale

It had been a long day, and we were exhausted, running from place to place. We found sustenance from a man a short walk from our apartment, selling whole chicken, chopped roughly in a grid, bones and all, and seared on an iron stove over a small fire. A tender meal with which to restore ourselves and ponder our problem, maybe the chicken would save the day.

Gravity! How to maintain the perpendicular relationship between the two rods for our thread membrane, keep them at the same distance from each other, and level? We devised a spectacle of a construction method, using the height of Studio Kirah building itself to hang both of our rods off of, from the roof down to the ground, at the exact distance we needed. Extreme as a construction method, but necessary. The next day we would begin in earnest.

An early start and a few final preparations, and we were ready to begin.

Causing somewhat of a mini-performance itself, we brought our metal members up through the studio, to the roof. Some careful preparation to avoid injury, and we had fixed one bar to the roof structure of the building.

A little more careful prep, and we were ready to hang the second bar from the first, forming a rectangle, hovering in space, ready for our weaving. In a few teams, we began cutting threads to the correct length, tossing threads from the roof, and affixing them to both the bottom and top bars in our pattern: a group of threads in a cluster on one bar, distributed across the whole bar below, creating a criss-crossing, woven ‘textile’.

Dismounting the new membrane was a spectacle in and of itself.

Laying a white sheet of fabric on the ground, perpendicular to the wall, and underneath our hanging textile, we slowly lowered the top bar, attached to the roof structure, down to the ground, while at the same time, moving the lower bar away from the wall, always keeping the membrane in tension.

After reaching the far end of the fabric, we began rolling the bar and new textile in the white cloth, so as to keep it from tangling. The next day would be entirely about weaving, starting the process all over again, for the second membrane.

Once complete, we brought all of the pieces, together with painted blocks to match the colors of our metal frames, to our first site, the Cafe Kipe. It was a late night, but we began discussing how to arrange our first installation, how first to give our Portique its final focus, and first manifestation. We were tired, and in some cases a bit unwell, tensions were a bit frayed, but we came to a decision.

The next morning was early; the first day of the festival. Bright, hot, and still sleepy, we hustled through our morning ritual, and made our way to Cafe Kipe, it was time to bring it to life. We quickly realized that due to the weight of these members, the erection of the Portique was not as graceful as we had intended. Taking quite some time, and some careful coordination of movements, we slowly raised one frame vertically on their base plates, then slowly another. Once stable, the first frame was lifted again, and fixed to the second position: at a 70-degree angle from the ground. The second frame followed suit and we held our breath. Not a movement. The frame stood, the upper membrane in tension, the lower, gracefully hanging below. A pattern of shadow lines on the ground wrote our textile onto the earth.

130

A Telling

It was time for the opening, beginning with a performance by members of the festival for visitors, the public, and government officials at a site near the Cafe, on the Terrain. After the opening, members were invited back to the cafe for a panel discussion, and asked to enter through a corner entrance, which we had aligned our Portique towards. Guests were received by our installation, and seemed to enjoy it. They walked through the fringes, photographed themselves with it. The dancer, Lionel Fredoc, was inspired by it, and performed an impromptu dance in the shadow of the threads.

His clothing shone, the same colors as our Portique, his movements were mesmerizing, graceful. Even through our exhaustion, we were entranced.

But there was no rest to be had, as our next installation site was waiting for a performance that very evening. We carefully dismounted our membranes, laying the frames on the ground, and rolled our textiles into their white sheathes. With some help from a truck we were able to hire on the Terrain, we moved everything to the old presidential palace, Papa Koly.

Given the distance to the performance site, we rode along in the bed, sitting on the blocks of our installation. The city moved past peacefully, our driver taking the less crowded roads, roads flanked by fields, trees, and small homes.

Some discussion ensued on the site in regard to the location of our piece, but the final decision mutually agreed upon to be ideal was: underneath the pediment of the entrance gate, acting as a portal through the opening into the performance site. Exactly how we hoped it would behave. We were becoming much faster at assembling the Portique, taking far less time than the last. After construction, we enjoyed its presence, playing in the shadows of the threads. A motorbike used it as a passage.

Before the performance began, we illuminated it with a red safety light, and welcomed the audience through. The two performances of the night were a spectacle: first, we were entranced by the scenography and production of Traces, a performance by Samira Negrouche and Fatou Cisse, then later, immersed into a piece by Hakim Bah and Cedric Brossard, Traque.

The end of the night again, and though tired, we needed to disassemble the portique once more, and ready it for its journey to the next destination tomorrow. Morning came, and we readied ourselves for transportation to the last site, the Petit Terrain, a smaller, open pasture used in the daytime for soccer matches, and at night for a few, small local bars. After a discussion with the scenographers conducting the evening’s performance, Les Survivants, a piece by Lional Manga, it was determined that we could use the Portique as an element of the scenography, a dream of our intentions.

The performance space was a circle of candles, perhaps 12 meters across, interrupted only at a far end by our Portique, opening into the circus space. The fringe was separated, and darkness fell, the performance began.

A mad rush of acrobats, the Compagnie Tangbata, carrying stacks of plastic chairs over their heads flew through our structure, then began tossing the chairs back and forth across the circle. As acrobats rushed in and out of the backstage, through our portal, we felt integrated with the spectacle, contributors in the end, despite our initial separation from the festival.

We were enamored with the performance, and honored to have contributed.

It was over, our form had been brought to focus, and allowed to live and live with the festival. We assembled it one last time at Studio Kirah, an effort as simple to us at this point as standing ourselves up after sleep, to ready for breakfast.

131

Zach Beale

132

The Strange City

A Tyrolean woman, wondering about a City.

Conakry, capital of Guinea, West Africa.

She, the Stranger.

Café, Lisbon Airport, Portugal.

A French guy, awaiting something.

Tell us about it, they asked.

It is strange, a strange city, he said.

Can you bring us there, they asked.

6 people, yes.

6 motorbikes? OK. 25 Milles Franc.

C’est le prix!

But what does that mean?

Strange in its shape.

Defined by its outline.

No coffee, no tea, no time.

Let’s go to the gate, some said.

Can you explain, she asked.

It is long, it is narrow.

A long stripe.

With a beginning and an end.

Where to start?

Open to the ocean, to a collection of material, one calls it trash, others build a festival on it.

Closed to, to the other side.

Towards the city, the built environment.

Closed to the people?

To voice and rights?

Concentration.

Everything in one spot.

A total entirety.

A centre.

They call it Medina.

Medina, the old town.

Where everything takes place, the big happening, the discussion, the argument, the market.

A place of supply and demand, of questions and answers, or desires and rejections?

Loud, full and abounding with flavour.

Let’s go.

But don’t get lost.

High Speed.

High Attention.

One direction.

This is a race, full of adrenaline, of fun and fear.

We feel the city, we feel its shape.

We feel the strangeness.

Don’t be scared.

Everything will go fine.

Where are you from?

Autriche, France, Belgique?

I am looking for a girl to marry.

I am from here, from Guinée.

I speak French, how about you?

He is not from here.

He doesn’t speak the Language.

Malinke, Fulani, Susu, Toma.

That’s what we speak.

In the South it’s Susu.

Hello, how are you?

Salut, comment ca va?

Laughing, watching, wondering.

Eyes, Actions and Words.

In-between: Green trees and countless colourful cars.

A jungle full of cars, football matches and bars.

This is the Terrain.

133

Carmen Egger

Carmen Egger is an architectural designer and studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. She began her master’s degree under the professorship of architect Kazuyo Sejima and is currently doing her thesis in Studio Díaz Moreno and García Grinda.

She completed her bachelor’s degree in Innsbruck and worked for the Tyrolean state theater and architecture office Christoph Eigentler. She has been a member of [a]FA since 2018 and is working as a student assistant there. The focus of her projects is on ecological approaches with cultural references.

Living, working, eating, playing, competing.

One day after the other.

Dark, loud, dirty.

Men, measuring tape and sunglasses.

A welding workshop.

It is dark.

The power is gone.

Time to leave.

Different colours, different people, different stories.

No, wait.

However:

It will come back, soon.

The power will come back.

Just wait.

I give you, you give me.

I show you my house and you show me yours.

I give you a bag of oranges,

Tomorrow, now, or never?

And you will do the same one day, right?

Let’s meet in the morning.

I will pick you up.

There is nothing strange.

You are here, you are welcome.

Welcome to les Blancs!

Whom are you waiting for?

I am waiting for the welder.

What are you drawing?

Something for Conkary.

Thank you.

I want to go home.

Here you are.

The window of your car is broken.

Nongo Pont.

Bring us to Nongo Pont.

Grey, Rosé or Rouge Bordeaux?

Which colour do you prefer?

I will make a mélange for you.

S’il vous plaîtes.

Maybe Pink.

Conakry, capital City of Guinea, West Africa.

We were here, we have perceived.

We, the strangers.

134

The City as a Theatre: The Fragments

Viewed from above, approaching the city from the night sky, only the blurred shadows of the rare street lamps revealed a very dense, vivid, and restless urban fabric.

The Plateau is where everything imaginable can be dreamed of, made up of desires and fears.

As soon as I set foot there, experiencing the freedom of being on the ‘New Ground’, feeling the heavy sultriness of midnight, everything I had imagined before was forgotten. The invisible street, hidden behind the dark passage, became long and straight. Suddenly, the alternating intervals of the low light brought into view the restless faces of passersby, colorful umbrellas, crooked walls, small terraces, unfinished houses, wooden constructions, etc., while the dusty, yellowish wind was blowing through the open car window.

Morning would be a little quieter than the rest of the day, but maybe only just for a moment and very early — as soon as the small shops would open their storefronts, they would invite people to sit on their staircases, waiting for possible transport. From one shop to the next, the main street seemed to continue on, multiplying its infrastructure of endless bazaars. The stage was born, the carpets spread over the paths.

The race would begin. Everyone would be fighting for their part of the road, which didn’t seem to be subject to any rules. Only those who were invisible and unrecognizable to us would create “order out of chaos”: A rapid flock of motorbikes was able to overtake every obstacle on the street. No helmet this time. The confidence in the driver was all we had on our road trip.

C’est bon, c’est bon?! The win was coded.

If we were to leave the brawling main street, where the vendors would tirelessly weigh the most delicious avocados, bananas, and pineapples, and cut coconuts with sharp machetes, we would enter those narrow, redsoiled, full-of-potholes passageways, which had almost become extensions of the courtyards on both sides, reappearing as an infra-stage, where the chickens would run free, one after another, the boys would play football, ignoring the occasional passing cars, and the women would spread freshly washed clothes over the fence.

135

Ivan Jakaric is currently studying at Studio Díaz Moreno and García Grinda at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He joined [a]FA for the Conakry Play Urban Lab in 2019. Before starting his master under the professorship of architect Kazuyo Sejima, he studied architecture at TU Wien (BA).

During his studies, he gained experience working for querkraft architects.

Each city had its own melody, each somehow different from the others. If you listened carefully, especially in the early morning, you could hear the first rhythm of Conakry. A progressive and meditative sound of religious song, coming from a distance, as a prelude and alarm clock signalling a new day, revealing a daily image of its existence. The ”theatre” was open.

Once awakened, the city would repeat and perform its polyphony until late into the night. The street was certainly its main instrument, a vibrant stage where the actors would constantly support each other in an eruption of coded hoots. At the same time, you could hear so many voices buzzing from different directions.

Perhaps they were caught up in an endless dialogue, which would make them alive. Boiale boiale, the selling song of the head-toting lady, still rings in my ears.

Imagine an oval place surrounded by numerous small shacks, covered with colorful layers of metal sheet, dusty, yellowish ground, the ocean of old cars waiting to be repaired, the welders, the blue bar, the horses, the racing motorbikes, the football pitch, the open concert hall, and you will find yourself here at the Terrain.

A perfect place for the first and last Play Urban.

The city and its inhabitants seem to be dressed in vibrant clothes, not afraid of color. Kaleidoscopic as the ubiquitous plastic pots, they weave the patterns of the urban stage everyday. The wooden structure, completely wrapped in azure fabric used as mosquito net, the entrance emblazoned with door curtains and fringes, the small tables surrounded by unmatched chairs, a napkin around a bottle of beer: welcome to the loge of the Blue Bar.

Ivan Jakaric

136

The City as a Theatre: The Fragments

137

Ivan Jakaric

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139

Oliver Alunovic studies architecture at the University of Applied Arts and transdisciplinary arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He works in architecture, art and sound and is the founder of the transdisciplinary collective Supra//Struktur. He is currently researching gender-related paradigms in architecture and language by deploying Big Data evaluation tools. He works as assistant for Prof. Schabus Hans.

Oliver Alunovic

, me h ti eds, unal g ne m rou n th rough d com w o n h r t a G wn ility Gro essib ts. n acc eme e r g a

140

Un terrain de jeu — Spectacle des Survivants

Le sol est rouge brique, de ce rouge qui caractérise Conakry. Des tôles pliées, oxydées encerclent un terrain vague, un creux dans la ville. Nous arrivons sur le terrain.

Il est difficile de raconter Conakry sans faire de détours, comme il est complexe de raconter l’expérience d’un spectacle vécu hors les murs, dans l’espace de la rue, entre spectateurs invités et passants s’invitant.

Soudain se matérialise un couloir bâti de fer et de fils de couleur. Des hommes et des femmes achèvent de l’installer. Ils disparaissent. Arrivent alors d’autres hommes et d’autres femmes qui s’arrêtent. Ils avaient rendez-vous ici. Des lumières au sol ont été allumées.

Elles dessinent un cercle d’une dizaine de mètres de diamètre. 60 bougies… pour 60 ans d’indépendance de la Guinée.

La Guinée, la ville de Conakry, ce sont des histoires, des cultures qui se nourrissent, se confrontent et s’affrontent parfois.

Sur l’air de Pata Pata, la voix de Miriam Makeba, figure emblématique de l’Afrique et de la Guinée, résonne sur le terrain. Le spectacle commence.

Portée comme un bélier qui serait assez solide pour briser des murs et des portes, une colonne de chaises de toutes les couleurs entre dans l’arène, soulevée par les circassiens. Érigée au centre du cercle de lumière, cernée de spectateurs attentifs, telle une grande sculpture de plastique, elle focalise les contraires et les contextes ; de l’ordinaire à l’extraordinaire, du récit du quotidien au conte, de la chaise au trône. Cette sculpture verticale est éphémère. Dans une immense joie, les circassiens font disparaître le totem en distribuant aux gens présents les chaises qui le composent. Assis, ensemble, les spectateurs ont fini de dessiner le cirque.

Il y aura de la joie, de la simplicité ordinaire, mais aussi des affrontements, des déconstructions, dans ce qui sera conté cette nuit.

Une moto plein phare passe à côté du cirque sans s’arrêter et disparaît au loin. La circassienne entame une danse effrénée.

Les percussions du musicien résonnent sur les tôles froissées du terrain, des maisons. Un homme seul jongle, la radio dans les glôglôs voisins, ces petits bars de Conakry, crache fort et absorbe le son des percussions. Il y a ceux qui boivent, ceux qui regardent, ceux qui passent, ceux qui passent en regardant. Ceux qui attendent avec impatience de pouvoir reprendre la prochaine chanson car ils connaissent le spectacle par cœur. Nous sommes sur leur terrain, ils ont assisté à la création du spectacle en même temps que nous…

Gabrielle Ritz est scénographe plasticienne.

Après une licence de Japonais à l’INALCO à Paris, elle poursuit ses études aux BeauxArts d’Annecy à l’ESAAA et obtient en 2015 un DNAP Design et Espace. Aujourd’hui, elle achève un master en scénographie à l’ecole La Cambre à Bruxelles. Forte de sa pratique en danse contemporaine, elle utilise la performance, l’installation et la vidéo pour questionner les gestes du quotidien, les objets de l’ordinaire et les temps du rituel dans l’espace urbain.

Alors que le spectacle est terminé, le cirque devient une grande piste de danse, animée par ceux qui étaient spectateurs, tandis que les circassiens se reposent. Des motos continuent de passer à côté, comme si une route invisible était dessinée sur un des côtés du cercle. Certaines choses ne changent pas, d’autres s’accélèrent. Demain, il y aura entraînement de foot à 18 heures.

Le centre du spectacle ne pouvait vivre que dans son rapport à la périphérie. L’histoire racontée aussi.

Pour que cette création ait un corps, elle devait s’appuyer d’abord sur le sol qui l’accueillerait et résonner avec les âmes qui y vivent. Ici, ce terrain du marché de Kaporo est un espace qui est à la fois et simultanément un endroit que les gens traversent quotidiennement, un lieu pour les entraînements et les matchs de football, un espace pour les chevaux, un lieu de rencontre où l’on peut boire des bières et écouter de la musique. Un des points d’ancrage du spectacle était d’utiliser les chaises en plastique que l’on voit partout dans la ville. Objet banal, du quotidien il nous aura donné du fil à retordre et ce jusqu’au commencement du spectacle puisque spectateurs et habitants, tellement habitués à cet objet, déplaçaient les chaises pourtant précautionneusement disposées pour le spectacle. Cet élément clé du jeu et de la scénographie prenait déjà une direction à laquelle nous n’avions pas pensé. Il Raconter des histoires avec des éléments appartenant au lieu et au terrain était déjà intéressant en soi, encore plus si c’était source de malentendus. Le conte est d’autant plus fort qu’il est bâti sur un imaginaire collectif partagé par tous : l’histoire, l’espace, le temps, l’objet…

Le terrain rouge brique de Kaporo à Conakry est un endroit de passage mais aussi un lieu ' en creux ( dans la ville. Il s’active et se nourrit à travers la présence des gens qui y habitent, qui y jouent, qui y donnent un spectacle ou qui y passent tout, simplement.

141

Gabrielle Ritz

A Playground. Survivors’ Show The ground is brick red, the red that characterizes Conakry. Oxidized folded sheets surround a vacant lot, a hollow in the city. We arrive on the ground.

It is difficult to recount Conakry without taking detours, just as it is complex to recount the experience of a show lived outside the walls but in the space of the street, between invited spectators and passing passersby.

Then materializes a corridor built of iron and colored threads. Men and women are completing the installation. They disappear. Then other men and women arrive and stop. They had a meeting here. Lights on the ground were on. They draw a circle about ten meters in diameter. 60 candles.

This is the same number of years as the independence of Guinea.

Guinea, the city of Conakry, are full of history, full of cultures that feed on each other, confront and sometimes clash.

To the tune of Pata Pata, the voice of Miriam Makeba, an emblematic figure of Africa and Guinea, resonates on the pitch. The show begins.

Carried like a ram that would be strong enough to smash walls and doors, a column of chairs of all colors enter the arena raised by the Circassians. Erected in the center of the circle of light and attentive spectators, like a large sculpture made of plastic, it focuses opposites and contexts; from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the everyday story to the tale, from the chair to the throne. This vertical sculpture is ephemeral. In great joy, the circus artists make the totem pole disappear by distributing the chairs that compose it to the people present. Sitting together, the spectators have finished drawing the circus.

There will be joy, ordinary simplicity but also clashes, deconstructions in what will be told tonight.

A headlamp motorcycle passes the circus without stopping and disappears in the distance. The circus woman begins a frantic dance.

The musician’s percussions echo on the crumpled sheets of the ground, of the houses. A single man juggles, the radio in the neighboring gloglos (small bars) spits loudly and absorbs the sound of the percussions.

There are those who drink, those who watch, those who pass, those who pass by watching. Those who can’t wait to be able to sing along to the next song because they know the show by heart. We are on their land, they attended the creation of the show at the same time as us…

As the show is over, the circus becomes a large dance floor, enlivened by those who were spectators while the circus performers rest. Motorcycles continue to pass by as if an invisible road were drawn on one side of the circle. Some things don’t change, others accelerate. Tomorrow there will be soccer practice at 6 p.m.

The center of the spectacle could only live in its relation to the periphery. The story told too. For this creation to be a body it had to rest first on the ground that would welcome it and resonate with the souls who live there. Here, this Kaporo market ground is a space which is at the same time and at the same time a place that people pass through daily, a place for training and football matches, a space for horses, a meeting place. where you can drink beers and listen to music. One of the anchor points of the show was to use the plastic chairs that you see all over the city. A banal object, everyday it will have given us a hard time until the beginning of the show since the spectators and residents, being so used to this object, moved the chairs carefully arranged for the show. It was the key element of the game and the set design and already it was taking a direction we hadn’t thought of. It was interesting to tell stories with elements that belonged to the place and the terrain even more if it created misunderstandings.

The tale is all the stronger when it is built on a collective imagination shared by all: history, space, time, object…

The brick red terrain of Kaporo in Conakry is a place of passage but also a place “in hollow” in the city.

It is activated and nourished by the presence of the people who live there, who play there, who give a show or simply pass by.

142

La ferme Kaporo

A la ferme Kaporo, on trouve plein de choses, surtout si l’on ne cherche rien de particulier. Des gens qui attendent et des gens qui réparent ; des gens qui mélangent et des gens qui parlent. Il y a ceux qui soudent, celles qui cuisinent, celles qui comptent et ceux qui désossent.

Certains briquettent, les autres regardent ; on roule, on court, on trébuche entre les maisons de plastique et de métal. Celui qui est passé par là en garde un souvenir halluciné, un souvenir fait de poètes qui déclament, de tractopelles qui dansent et de corps pliés en deux.

Au milieu de la ferme, on trouve un grand carré de terre battue de 30 mètres de côté, habité par quelques survivants. ' Survivant ( est le nom que l’on donne aux gens entre 20 et 30 ans, ayant ainsi dépassé l’âge présentant le plus de risque de mourir : maladies et a ccidents causent de terribles ravages parmi les plus jeunes. Après avoir survécu, ces personnes se retrouvent à la ferme Kaporo. Dans ce carré de terre battue entouré d’une muraille de tôles, le quotidien prend des airs de tragédie, tandis que les événements les plus incroyables se déroulent sous le regard impassible des buveurs attablés aux terrasses des cafés qui bordent cette place.

En journée, on assiste à un ballet délié de clébards errants qui se chauffent au soleil. Le rayonnement solaire inonde le site avec une telle intensité qu’il demeure inoccupé jusqu’en fin d’après-midi. Lorsqu’il baisse enfin, une vingtaine de jeunes installent des cages de fortune avec des pierres, de part et d’autre du carré, qui retentit alors jusqu’à la nuit des cris des joueurs et des passants qui s’improvisent supporters.

Lorsque la nuit tombante siffle la fin de la partie, les terrasses des maquis sont bondées. Chaque soir se déroule ensuite le même rituel : un homme passe sur le terrain pour déposer et allumer 61 bougies en formant un cercle d’environ 10 mètres de diamètre. Elles diffusent une lumière douce et chaude. Ce terrain vague n’a alors plus rien du désert inhospitalier qu’il est pendant les heures diurnes. Des centaines de voisins s’installent tout autour pour boire des Guiluxe jusqu’à une heure avancée de la nuit.

Dans la lueur des bougies un homme apparaît, il titube avec une bouteille à la main ; son regard est fixé sur sol et le regard de la foule est fixé sur lui. Il s’approche d’une terrasse et se saisit d’une enceinte qu’il emmène avec lui en zigzagant, poursuivi par trois hommes. Au milieu de tout ce monde s’élève soudain une voix, celle de Miriam Makeba : ' Regardez, voici le Pata Pata ! ( entend-on. Ce soir-là, les mots de la Mama Africa résonnent plus fort que d’habitude : 61 ans plus tôt, la Guinée s’unissait pour mettre dehors les colons français. Après son mariage avec Stokely Carmichael, Miriam Makeba fut contrainte de fuir les États-Unis et trouva une terre d’asile à Conakry. Cette terre d’asile, le chef des Black Panther finirait par la rejoindre quelques années plus tard : il est enterré à Conakry, près de la ferme Kaporo.

10 survivants apparaissent au milieu du terrain.

Ils dansent en coltinant une immense pile bariolée de chaises en plastique qu’ils déposent au centre.

L’empilement culmine à trois mètres du sol. Les jeunes s’attellent à prendre les chaises une par une en riant et à les lancer en l’air pour se les passer. On distingue clairement les chaises qui volent entre les mains des survivants, de simples chaises en plastique coloré identiques à celles des maquis. Après les avoir fait voltiger plusieurs minutes sous les cris enthousiastes des spectateurs, le groupe dispose les chaises en suivant le pourtour des bougies, prolongeant ainsi les terrasses avoisinantes. Dans ce dispositif de chaises, une femme déambule. Chaque soir, elle roule des hanches en tenue léopard, une guirlande électrique autour du cou, dans le champ visuel des hommes qui la dévorent du regard. Elle s’éloigne parfois avec l’un d’entre eux dans l’obscurité. Chaque soir, Bountou apparaît ainsi, faisant des allers-retours entre les terrasses et des recoins intimes de la ferme.

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Anton Grandcoin est né à Paris en 1996. Il rentre à la Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin en 2016 ou il intègre l’atelier de scénographie et y obtient un DNAP en 2019. Le rapport entre image et espace est le point de départ de sa recherche plastique, qu’il nourrit aussi de son expérience de pianiste.

Un soir, un événement vient perturber ce rituel.

Pendant que Bountou fait son numéro de charme, des gamins se montent sur les épaules au milieu des tables.

Devant l’assemblée hilare, perchés à plusieurs mètres de hauteur, ils se lancent des quilles dans un numéro de jonglage magistral. C’est alors que trois hommes portant des lunettes noires font irruption au milieu de la foule. Un silence tendu s’installe. C’est Molamine, le chef des bandits du quartier, venu avec ses hommes de main. Molamine crie quelque chose et aussitôt, ses acolytes bousculent sans ménagement des gens assis pour récupérer des chaises. 40 chaises sont empilées au bord du terrain, le truand s’installe en haut de cette pile qui s’élève à plusieurs mètres du plancher des vaches. Ainsi trônant, il surveille les maquis et écoute les conversations. Un par un, on vient saluer la figure d’autorité autoproclamée. Le voyou semble satisfait et à certains, il glisse un billet dans la main. Au bout de quelques minutes, chacun a rendu son hommage, sauf Bountou qui a totalement ignoré Molamine. L’ordre est donné de lui amener la gonzesse rebelle. Elle se plante au pied de la colonne de chaises et regarde le chef dans les yeux, les bras croisés. Molamine dégaine un revolver qu’il pointe sur Bountou ; elle reste immobile face à la menace. Le bandit s’adresse à cette femme qui lui tient tête calmement et lui pose une simple question à laquelle personne n’aura de réponse. Un des porteflingues de Molamine abat Bountou à bout portant de deux balles dans la tête. Son corps bascule dans le vide presque au ralenti et tombe sans une goutte de sang au milieu des buveurs qui retournent à leurs boissons, l’air de rien, alors que les meurtriers s’enfuient à moto dans la nuit. On entend le vrombissement pendant encore un long moment. Quelques survivants s’emparent de Bountou et la portent au centre du cercle de bougies.

En un hommage solennel et poignant, elle est allongée dans leur vacillante lueur.

Anton Grandcoin

Peu après le meurtre, le corps sans vie gît toujours au centre du carré. Les bougies se sont éteintes depuis un moment. Dembo, le musicien du quartier, est venu avec sa calebasse rythmer les conversations qui se prolongent jusqu’au bout de la nuit. Tandis qu’il frappe son instrument, un bruit non identifié vient se superposer à la mélodie des verres et des voix. Le sol tremble. Les bouteilles s’entrechoquent. On se regarde d’un air curieux et inquiet à la fois. Dans l’obscurité qui règne maintenant sur le terrain, on entrevoit de grandes formes blanches bouger d’un bout à l’autre. Une de ces formes s’approche tranquillement d’un maquis. Certains reconnaissent un cheval blanc. Quelques-uns se lèvent des tables pour se réfugier dans les cahutes proches.

Histoire de ne pas être piétiné par ce troupeau de chevaux qui galopent en cercle sur la place sans prêter la moindre attention au mobilier ni aux gens. Des tables volent en éclats. Les bourrins déchaînés sont devenus le centre de l’attention des soiffards et soiffardes qui en oublient tout le reste. Après quelques minutes de ce tumulte, quelqu’un allume des projecteurs dans l’espoir de dissiper cette intrusion fantastique et les destriers venus de nulle part s’évanouissent. Au centre du terrain, Bountou a disparu. Tandis que la stupéfaction gagne l’assemblée, des motos traversent la ferme Kaporo à toute allure en faisant résonner leur pétarade chinoise dans le ciel. Ce sont les survivants qui s’en vont ailleurs, en quête d’un endroit où dormir, d’amis à retrouver ou de spectateurs devant lesquels mourir.

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Diary: The Portique

Anni Dai is an architectural designer and currently completing her master’s degree at the University of Applied Arts Vienna at the studio of Professor Greg Lynn. Her architectural approach experiments with pairing contemporary technology with cultural sensitivity, and her most recent work focused on agent-based mobilityinformed architectural design with particular attention on space and color, as well as seeking potential development of machine vision used for architectural design.

07 Nov 2019 Thursday Refreshing First Day

06 Nov 2019 Wednesday Arrival / Intro This project is unlike any other project I have ever done.

We have been asked to develop an urban intervention, basically from scratch, and to complete construction in 10 days. The “mission” is still unclear — and the city is still a strange context for all of us.

We are aware of the danger of ending up with a design outside of the given context.

Our flight arrives at night. I look outside the window, millions of night lights shining through the darkness, the city is much more urban than I expected.

The moment I get off the plane, I am immersed in the warm, moist air, which is so different to cold and dry Vienna. This drastic change is a great way to announce the beginning of this project.

We are guided to our apartments from the airport.

François introduces the city in the most imaginative and romantic way: “Do you smell the fish now? That’s how you know you are in Nongo Pont”.

The city is so new to us we have no idea where to get breakfast. We are lucky to be staying in apartments which have a bit of a sea view and we can enjoy the cityscape. Jean Christophe walks us to Les Studios Kirah, which is situated in a spacious three-storey house with a small courtyard. Les Studios Kirah is headquarters to the festival, where you can see artists and scenographers producing props, rehearsing and dancing.

After having our first discussion, we decide not to assist other festival productions but rather form our own design force, which should not only be part of the festival but should also be informed by the city. Our design phase officially starts.

We choose to visit four sites (which we were already interested in during our preliminary research): the Terrain, Café Kipe, Petit Terrain and Bomboya.

Considering how tight the schedule is, immediately afterwards we start sketching designs. Everyone gathers at Café Kipe to brainstorm results. However, we are not satisfied with any of them. More time and consideration is needed. The day ends with us sitting there, watching one of the plays being rehearsed and embracing the new environment.

A small discussion takes place when we go back to the apartment, which results in the idea of creating a threshold between two spatial conditions: the street and the compound, inside and outside, the festival and the city. It is intended to connect several theatrical plays performed at different locations to their immediate surroundings and urban contexts.

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Anni Dai

08 Nov 2019 Friday Brainstorm We need to have the construction completed in six days, as it will be used for the festival opening the following Friday. The three following days are crucial. The design needs to be confirmed to make sure that it is ready for construction.

It is worth mentioning the big breakfast ritual that we create during our time in Conakry, which forms a team-bonding culture and also a fresh start every morning.

Most of the day is spent in our apartment, which is used as our temporary studio. It is a day focused on brainstorming. Based on the threshold concept from last night, and the decision to work with steel and an earlier African wax print color concept by one of us, we decide on an installation that extends through the boundary, forms a welcoming gesture, and highlights the entrances of the various festival locations.

09 Nov 2019 Saturday Welding Workshop Even though our design process is still at an early stage, we already need to confirm to the welding workshop all the steel tube sizes and numbers for material ordering.

We divide ourselves up into sub-groups with different design tasks. Everything is in great flow. We spend the early afternoon discussing details of the steel tubes, then we meet with Suleiman, who is in charge of the whole Terrain area, he contacts the welding workshop for us. The steel tube details change again during our discussion with the workers in the welding workshop.

We are happy about how smoothly the work is going at the welding workshop, excited and a bit worried about the feasibility of our design, which was decided in such a short time.

10 Nov 2019 Sunday City Inspiration Today is scheduled as a more relaxed day. Since we haven’t explored the city outside of the neighborhood we are working in, it is crucial that we use this chance to get to see another aspect of Conakry, to observe and to get inspired. What was imagined to be a relaxing and unintentional Sunday trip turns out to be the turning point and crucial inspiration for our project. We take a motorbike trip going downtown by the seaside, which I can only describe as an adventure. At the National Museum, we find an old textile loom that originates from an old textile technique in Guinea. The thread and their naturally formed curves attract us. We love how it communicates and is transferred through different boundaries. We notice that the thread can withstand real weather conditions like rain better than a whole piece of fabric could. It also stands out and is easier to control and produce than fishnet (which we considered working with before). We are thrilled at our finding.

11 Nov 2019 Monday Production Starts The morning has a great start: the steel columns with extrusions are done. The next step is to figure out how to fit each bar with extrusions.

We are curious about what our final intervention will look like. We try different variations, test colors, etc.

Simulation and 3D models are quickly done in the morning. In the meantime, another sub-team already goes to the markets to see which thread is available.

We find out that the materials and resources are largely limited in variety and quantity. Certain compromises have to be made given the tight schedule and limited material resources.

Meanwhile, in the welding workshop, things are going smoothly. All the foundations are finished by midnight.

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Diary: The Portique

13 Nov 2019 Wednesday Almost There

12 Nov 2019 Tuesday Test Test Test It is time to land on several final design decisions. We hold a detail design session in the apartment in the morning. We want our installation to stand out from the background of Conakry, which, from our observation, is basically yellowish earth ground and blue sky. The idea of having all the parts of our installation integrated into one leads us to decide on the vibrant colors of pink and red. Of course, the limited selection from the market has also helped us move towards this decision. The next step is to think about tying thread to steel bars. Several knotting techniques are studied and tested.

The knotting technique changes a few times and, in the end, it ends up being the one which is easier to knot at a precise location, since we need to make sure that all the threads’ lengths are controlled. Another difficulty we discover is the uneven ground of the studio courtyard.

In the evening in the apartment, a great solution is proposed. We will use the top of the facade wall in the studio (three storeys high) to hang from. The gravity will work as a perfect balance, we need to make sure that the hanging bars on the top and bottom are carefully measured and balanced horizontally. Working on the facade wall of the studio turns the process itself into a performance that is exposed to the city.

At the end of the day, we are clearer about what to buy from the market the next day and are looking forward to the ‘performance’ that is about to happen.

Some of us get up early to run to the market and buy all the necessary things we have listed: red and pink threads, fabric, scissors, bendable wires, screws and nails.

Everything stays on schedule quite well. All the painting of the steel tubes is done by noon, final measurement decisions are made by mid-afternoon.

The knotting process goes smoothly from afternoon to almost midnight and is a fun and performative act.

We hang one of the two steel bars from the top, making sure it is balanced horizontally, and another one on ground level (three storeys below), perpendicular to the top bar. Each knotting begins with one person on the second floor, who starts a knot on the top bar, throws the bar down, which is caught by another person who knots it at another predetermined location on the lower bar, making sure the thread is fully taut.

The first layer of thread is almost done by tonight, tomorrow will be a whole-day knotting session.

14 Nov 2019 Thursday All Parts Done Today, we mainly focus on the production of our layers of thread, a repetitive process that takes the whole day right up to dusk. We carry it with other steel tubes and send them to the first site: Café Kipe, where it is supposed to be installed. In addition to the complete primary steel structure, we buy bricks to support our foundation plates in case they are not strong enough to hold the whole structure. The bricks are also painted in purple.

There is a late discussion at Café Kipe over where to exactly position our installation. The original plan was to position it across the bamboo fence at the location.

However, we find out that our installation is not high enough to go above it. Through several attempts, we realize that the heaviness of our steel tubes will be an issue when we migrate them across different sites. In the end, in Café Kipe, we set out the foundations and positions and decide to have a good rest and get ready for a busy tomorrow.

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Anni Dai

16 Nov 2019 Saturday Last Show 15 Nov 2019 Friday Festival Opening We arrive at Café Kipe early in the morning. The first construction phase of our installation takes three hours, much longer than expected.

After the festival opening ceremony, people start gathering at Café Kipe, where our installation starts to attract attention. We are really touched when people take photos of themselves with it. The highlight moment is when one of the festival participants, the dancer Lionel Fredoc, performs underneath our installation.

He brushes his hands through the threads gently, the thread slightly dancing accordingly, which we regard as the highest form of appreciation for our design.

In the afternoon, we disassemble the installation and relocate to Papa Koly, a site next to the sea. There is some conflict when we arrive, as the play in Papa Koly also has design intentions regarding their entrance situation. A compromise is made and we are not unsatisfied with the result. Visitors to the play enter through our installation, which was exactly our design intention.

The last site is the petit terrain, we are happy to be designing at this time with scenographers in order to decide where to best position and integrate our installation. The scenographers include our installation as part of their stage design. It serves as an entrance to the stage for the acrobats and artists. The play takes place at night; the theatrical lights shine on our installation, bringing out different aspects of the design.

17 Nov 2019 Sunday Departure The installation goes back to Studio Kirah, the headquarter for the festival, and a good place to preserve our installation.

Before we fly back, we have a final discussion with the leading scenographers to evaluate this experience.

The Conakry lab ends on a quieter note than we thought it would. The journey has been so intense we haven’t had the time to savor it in detail. However, I am sure that memories of our time in Conakry will come back to us once we are back in Vienna.

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Image Credits

Annie Dai: 14, 113 Baerbel Mueller: 14, 15, 17, 30-31, 34, 35, 98, 100-101, 103, 104, 105, 114-115, 116, 117, 121 Carmen Egger: 9, 12-13, 14, 16, 17, 18-19, 32, 33, 36-37, 73, 74, 76, 103, 107, 112, 119 Claudia Bosse: 83, 86, 89 Frida Robels: 14 Ibrahim Mahama: 92 Ivan Jacari: 113, 136, 137 Juergen Strohmeyer: 120, 121, 122-123 Magdalena Gorecka: 119 Oliver Alunovic: 111, 113 Studio Kirah: 14 Zach Baele: 108-109, 110, 113, 127

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Imprint

Editors Baerbel Mueller, Frida Robles Design Shirin Omran Translation Sally Laruelle, Virginie Dupray Proofreading Janima Nam Production Management Roswitha Janowski‐Fritsch Editorial Assistance Carmen Egger Printing Holzhausen Druck GmbH, Austria Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright.

Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

ISBN 978-3-9505036-0-9 © 2021 [applied] Foreign Affairs, Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna

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Context

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Baerbel Mueller, Frida Robles [applied] Foreign Affairs Institute of Architecture University of Applied Arts Vienna (Eds.)

Conakry

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Conakry Play Urban is a transdisciplinary, transcultural project by [a]FA (Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna), Play >Urban: Jean Christophe Lanquetin and François Duconseille (Scenography, Haute école des arts du Rhin, Strasbourg), and Bilia Bah and Hakim Bah (Artistic Directors, Univers des Mots, Conakry). Besides documenting and reflecting on the project, the publication at hand questions the notion of context in artistic spatial intervening, and led to a discourse between artists, scenographers and writers.

ISBN 978-3-9505036-0-9