8 week residency
from March 06 to 12
from 16 to April 22
from 15 to 25 may
from 10 to 23 July
Artist residency supported by the Ministry of Culture within the framework of the Capsule system.
With the support from the gîte An olive tree in the stars.
In 2023, Stimultania invited the photographer artist Mathieu Farcy for his creative residency 5 stars in Givors. During his regular stays, taking the time to meet, the time to bond, Mathieu Farcy worked with around ten residents. They created collective works together, photographs that tell the story of what provides refuge for them. “Together, we imagined these works as resistance, acts of self-affirmation, refuges for the stories that sleep deep in our bellies. Images like poetic manifestos.”
Imagine the Artist. He is sitting at his desk. Early this morning he took the girls to school. Today, he is waiting for the response to a call for projects, preparing his intervention in prison, retouching photographs for an upcoming exhibition in Switzerland. He will soon have to finalize his selection for the Great Order. He writes something down in his notebook. He received an invitation yesterday for a two-month residency in a territory he does not know. Seven hours on the train with connections. He'll have to think about talking to the bee lady about it. This evening. (…)
Close your eyes. Open them. The Artist now goes down to the platform with his backpacks. He receives keys. It is Sunday, the town is still full of its market but it is slowly emptying and leaves him with a bitter taste of solitude. He struggles to find food for dinner. The next day, when he found his sweet smile again, he decided to walk, he went to every street, every parking lot, every kebab shop. He wants to talk, he wants to be talked to.
He came to this town with words in his mouth folded bodies, unfolded bodies. He's interested really to know. But Ben drinks his glass of syrup and Carlos his Super Bock.
What is the Artist doing there? From the sidewalk, on the discolored plastic chairs, one can find the situation comical. It really is a crazy idea, to go away for two months to talk with people about their bodies, their constraints and their refuges. It’s definitely an artist’s idea. But Mathieu (because this man, this father is called Mathieu, but he could also have been called Melania, Dorian or Joseph), Mathieu meets people who tell him stories, who want to go with him, to do Something. Five, six, then ten people, it’s magical. They make pictures, build a cabin on the night of the fireworks, show themselves, tell stories; they shout too. They are our brothers, our mothers, our sons and our daughters. The work is there, it swells, it sighs, it speaks, it resists. She has her place.
Celine Duval
Inspired by reading Living with the disorder by Donna Haraway, Mathieu Farcy calls the project “Of love and rage”, driven by these questions: How to live with the disorder that often impacts our lives? How can we deploy our power and tenderness in a world that is fueled by anxiety, fear of tomorrow, and loneliness?
A few months later, after a first summer restitution in Givors, we are happy to support Mathieu Farcy's editorial project. The book keeps track of what was created, experienced together and allows the production to circulate. On the occasion of this publication, Stimultania is organizing a meeting with Mathieu Farcy at Collectif Item (Lyon), in the presence of journalist Brigitte Patient. A special time to discuss with the photographer about the progress of his residency, his way of working, of creating a collective work, of “making do” with it.
Matthew Farcy, born in 1985, lives in Marvejols. Photographer after having been a specialized educator, Mathieu Farcy places the question of “social disqualification” at the center of his work. His interest in speech and the place of others in society has never ceased to permeate his photographic practice. His various works are part of a reflection around what he calls “horizontal documentaries”, in which he involves the participants and considers them as equally responsible for creation as himself. Circulation(s) festival of young European photography 2019
After having approached it through two projects: a report with the workers in reintegration of the Le Relais factory, in the Somme and a video documentary on the workers of Goodyear in Amiens, he carried out a long-term project around the link between face and identity. First the series "Dear guns", on the disfigured faces of survivors of the First World War, then a collaboration with patients with facial cancer, undergoing reconstruction (physical and mental).
On the occasion of the release of the book “of love and rage” in November 2023 which marks the end of Mathieu Farcy's residency, journalist Brigitte Patient goes to Givors to collect the testimony of the co-creators involved. In 5 episodes, find the voices of Mathieu Farcy, Filipe, Yamina, Amélie and Medhi.
