Photographs taken by Merwan Alouache, Aurélie Bagne, Chloé Blanchon, Océane Bruchet, Mylène Crossonneau, Cyrielle Faure, Emilie Fayard, Camille Ferroul, Meriem Greco, Anaïs Ighit, Maëva Magand, Juliette Nesme, Mathilde Rico, Lucie Royet, Mariane Sequeira, Naomi Tezshilrat, -Kande, Laëtitia Valette, Lisa Valette, Noémie Vettore, Mélanie Vogue.
Artistic intention led and thought by Topotrope (Alexandra Caunes and Julio Bescos)
Creation time conducted on 20 hours spread over one week, in January 2017.
With Françoise Rochette, French teacher.
À the Maison Familiale Rurale de St-Chamond.
Intervention carried by Stimultania Photography center.
Support by the DRAC and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region as part of the Découverte Région, Passeurs de Culture call for projects.
For this experience around gesture and language, Stimultania invites Topotrope (Alexandra Caunes and Julio Bescos) to accompany the group of first bac pro SAPAT (Service to people and territories) in training at the Maison Familiale Rurale in St-Chamond.
"First there is the meeting with a group of young girls (or almost), interns in a professional high school. Here the object of their training: personal assistance. From there to converge our will to show, through photography, the object of our meeting. What we will have to make, together. Concentrate on this idea of the gesture to be deployed in this activity, a vocabulary of gestures. The gesture of what, from whom, and when, and why.
Also the context of professional training for these young people, their place of life and attitudes, or movements to be carried out to “go towards” another. How does it get started, what does it generate, a gesture in help? How it gets lodged in them, in the bodies of young people. Together, try to put representations of their professional world out of context and make links with the representation linked to the history of art.
Sign language as gesture-vision-space.
The photo novel and / or the animated GIF as a means of production.”Topotrope
Everyone walks in front of and behind the device, first reproducing a gesture taken from everyday life, in street clothes. Then, in a meticulous and attentive manner, the chosen professional gesture. The exercise is not obvious, it triggers sensations, reactions, multiple and unexpected. Awareness of appearance, already, and the fact of having to let go of one's image. There is also the revelation of this gesture still in learning and the fact that it is well mastered.
The project is part of an action led by the artists during the Design Biennale of Saint-Étienne, which questions, among other things, work. The set of animated GIFs, edited into a video sequence, is presented in the space occupied by the artists. Posters are also displayed and made available.
Production: 50 × 70 cm double-sided posters, printed in 200 copies, distributed to the participants and the public of the 2017 Design Biennale.
Created in 2008 and composed of Alexandra Caunes and Julio Bescos, visual artists, Topotrope is a "laboratory of common representations". As part of his artistic activity, he offers experimental workshops around the creation and manipulation of objects or manufactured images. A reflection on the fragmentation and the linking of heterogeneous elements often drawn from everyday life, as a process of elaboration and formulation of a thought, a gesture.
