Visual artist Karine Bracq in residence in Calais to strengthen access to art and culture in neighborhoods
Until the end of December, the visual artist Karine Bracq is in residence in the districts of Beau Marais and Fort Nieulay in Calais. Through artistic workshops, it invites residents to express their creativity and rethink their environment.
The Interceltic Festival of Lorient 2022
“The objective is to build a participatory project with audiences who are not used to meeting each other, to free creativity, to create a work that does not belong to anyone, like this district.announcement Karine Bracq, visual artist, chosen to ensure a residency of several months in the Calais neighborhoods. A project led by the City Policy and City of Art and History of Calais departments.
Until December 5, the inhabitants of Fort Nieulay and Beau-Marais are invited to participate in artistic workshops. On the program, molding, writing, painting, printmaking…”everything related to plastic art“, adds the artist. The final work will revolve around shapes modeled from packaging, what Karine Bracq calls a “kit”, made with plaster.
“The goal is also to invite the inhabitants to rethink their environment, to this district, soon to be destroyed and which will be rebuilt”evokes the artist because this artistic project is in line with the new urban renewal program (NPRU) in Calais, which foresees many demolition and rehabilitation sites in the coming months. “The destruction of Fort Nieulay is imminent. Just like their neighborhood, the works in kit form could be destroyed and then rebuilt”continues the artist.
“L‘idea is to also work on the emotions that this created in these inhabitants, which they could then express in the works, in universes that they do not know”, she adds, because the objective is also to offer an artistic experience to audiences far removed from cultural sectors.
Thanks to the “kit”, Karine Bracq wishes to invite the inhabitants to rethink their environment, while having a look at the society in which they live. Thus, each modeling is made from plastic packaging of everyday life.
“By diverting the packaging, I would like to bring an ecological idea to the project, to open up the question of mass consumption, that they see this packaging differently and that this creates a reflection”.
Free and open to all, the workshops are set up gradually. A restitution is scheduled for the end of December, but it is difficult for Karine Bracq to know what it applies to, “it is the inhabitants who will give it its direction, it is an evolving project… just like their neighborhood is”.