Photographs, texts, and drawings made by Idris, Ismahen, Alexis, Durdane, Nohaila, Kenza, Johanna, Jenna, Elodie, Stella, Dorian, Steven, Mathis, Terry, Fares, Lucas, Sadek, Mehiedine, Mathis, Lorenzo, Jean.
Artistic intention thought and led by Po Sim Sambath
Creation time conducted on 20 hours spread over four consecutive days, in March 2017.
With Aurélia Serre, professor of applied arts.
Au Notre Dame private vocational school, Givors.
Intervention carried by Stimultania Photography center.
Support by the DRAC and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region within the framework of the Découverte Region call for projects, culture facilitators.
The private vocational school Notre Dame de Givors has a motto: “Esto vir” (Becomes a man). Every Tuesday, as in other establishments in France, professional attire is compulsory for all high school students.
Shirt and fitted jacket, pleated pants or skirt, shoes for the great days. All in black. What is the meaning of this occasional but regular “blanket”? What is the relationship of young people with this garment, with what it evokes? A second class attempts a photographic and artistic response.
Po Sim Sambath, artist photographer invited by Stimultania, accompanies young people on the paths of reflection and creation. With her, they will invent new uses for the interior and exterior spaces of the school, shake up the link between the body and the architecture, between the body and the uniform, between the uniform and the work, the body and the work.
It was therefore a question of appearance, pretenses, burlesque and poetry. There is a thrill of madness that runs through clothing and body, distilled as the material grows - surrealist dialogues between shirts and ties, corrosive photographic scenes.
It was therefore a question of performance, in the artistic sense, but also professional, human, daily. Of what we are capable of, or not. Of what we dare, or not. A serious game, not always taken seriously because it is not easy to get involved and give of yourself.
Thus, the photographic and literary instructions composed these four intensive days of creation and experimentation to end up coming together in the book. And then this funny question that had to be answered: what does it mean to become a man?
Production: 10 posters format 30 × 40 cm stuck in the school; a 15 × 21 cm book, 76 pages, laid out by Po Sim Sambath and Stimultania, printed in 35 copies on the Impression de livre.com website, distributed to students and partners.
Born in 1980, Po Sim Sambath lives and works in Paris. Po Sim Sambath studied Modern Letters at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris 3 until 2005, then a Master in Plastic Arts, photography department in Paris 8, which she completed in 2016. Talent scholarship in 2010, she received a first residency in 2012 at the Millay Colony for the Arts, New York State, United States, then a second at the Plessix-Madeuc workshops in Corseul, Brittany, in 2013. She regularly presents her work in collective exhibitions (Maison de la photograph Robert Doisneau, La parole errante in Montreuil, Galerie des Petits Carreaux in St-Briac, Léhon Abbey in Brittany, National Library of France etc.).
