Incubation, support for developing innovative projects

Concretely encouraging the diversity of cultural expressions in one’s territory, defining priorities to give citizens an active role, integrating artists, deepening one’s knowledge of the field, creating links between actors from various backgrounds to engage them on the path of mediation and cultural democracy…: many projects need to test their intuitions, to refine their approach or to deepen it before deploying. This time and maturation work, often invisible but essential to create the conditions for a realization adapted to its territory, we have chosen to pay particular attention to it by supporting projects in the incubation phase. Thus, in 2020 and 2022, the “Mediation and Cultural Democracy” call for projects supported 9 projects in incubation in the Hauts de France. We met with two of them.

Encourage side steps

Financing often implies being able to present a solid, constructed and proven project by clearly identified actors. However, to launch local citizen dynamics, which carry meaning and potential for transformation in terms of mediation and cultural democracy, the road can be long and arduous, at the risk of discouragement. To encourage these initiatives and support them towards funding their effective implementation, the Foundation has planned to integrate laureates in the incubation phase since the launch of its call for projects in the Hauts de France. “The idea is to encourage project leaders to take a step aside, to work and experiment with intuitions, and not to deprive themselves of perspectives,” says Réjane Sourriseau, associate lecturer at the University of Lille, in charge of an evaluation to be published soon. In concrete terms, the selected projects are financed and supported in this particular period: “These are complex projects or projects that lack maturity. We provide them with exteriority, methods of reflection and reformulation, a time of hindsight to help them move forward,” continues Réjane Sourriseau. “It is not a question of providing turnkey advice, but of listening, a framework that adapts to the objectives and situations encountered.”

In the Dunkirk conurbation, cultural rights through artistic experimentation

For two years, the inhabitants of the Petit Steendam district in Coudekerque-Branche have been invited to collectively reclaim their territory by becoming cultural actors in their own right. With the complicity of local structures and artists in residence, more than 430 people, aged 8 to 75, have expressed themselves, met, invented and participated in various actions in the public space in 2021 and 2022: writing and reading workshops, situated portraits, in situ reports by budding reporters, Meetings, performances… Surveying was at the heart of this project entitled “Déplis”: “We chose to work on a pedestrian scale and from walking, taking the time to observe and meet people, to go and see, to walk together. In fact, particular attention was paid to what already existed in the district and what was happening there. Our intention was to put into practice the issue of cultural rights as defined in the Fribourg Declaration drafted in 2007. It is a question of allowing any person, alone or in common, to have their rights recognized in terms of identity, diversity, heritage, community, information, education, participation and cooperation,” says the project’s presentation file.

This project was made possible after several months of incubation financed by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, with its call for projects which served as a kind of trigger for a group of agents of the Urban Community of Dunkirk and actors from different fields (art and culture, popular education, urban planning, public action). They saw it as an opportunity to collectively confront the field after an action-training on cultural rights. “This phase allowed us to start an experiment without any obligation of result or predefined form,” explains Anne Rivolet, Director of the Dunkirk site, Ecole supérieure d’art du Nord-Pas de Calais/ Dunkerque-Tourcoing (ESÄ). “We were able to clear the way for the territory and above all to be in a real horizontal co-development with structures, inhabitants and artists, all of whom were integrated from the design of the project.”

Thus, during this period and despite Covid, several explorations and meetings have made it possible to collectively choose the Petit Steendam district as the site of the project. The initial group of actors, augmented by the invited artists, deepened their knowledge and shared understanding of the issues and the progress of the project, built mutual trust within the collective and refined the methodology. The first surveys with the inhabitants and a public meeting brought up avenues for work, a group of students from the Ecole supérieure d’art de Dunkerque was integrated into the process, the blog telling the story of the project by the artist Valérie Gautier started… Today, the project is over but it continues its life in the form of sharing experience thanks to the tools produced: film ” The line of the dunes “, the almanac, the blog, the podcasts. ” We are now in the process of transmission ,” concludes Anne Rivolet.

“This type of committed support is very important to act on the path of cultural democracy. It gives time, freedom and trust, essential ingredients for the development of citizen empowerment, with long-term effects. »

Anne Rivolet, Director of the Dunkirk site, Ecole supérieure d’art du Nord-Pas de Calais/ Dunkerque-Tourcoing (ESÄ)

In the Aisne, poetry brings together and shakes up illiteracy

Direction Fère-en-Tardenois, in the south of the Aisne. In this vast rural territory, with few cultural structures and a high rate of illiteracy, the ALIS company has developed an artistic project with and for residents with great reading and writing difficulties, but also promoted a dynamic of solidarity between actors from different backgrounds. At the heart of this civic initiative are typobaladeurs, itinerant machines that make it possible to make poetic micro-shows printed on a ticket and distributed according to meetings and events. Without claiming to be a learning process for reading or the French language, they invite in a playful way, to discover the universe of words to and share the pleasure they can provide thanks to poetry with 2 half-words, of which Pierre Fourny, founder of the association, is the inventor. While the company has been presenting its shows and performances for many years, the objective of the project presented to the Foundation is to allow residents who are a priori distant from cultural practices and who have difficulty reading, to appropriate the creative process during artistic workshops: choreographic gesture, creation of videos, manipulation of poetry in 2 half-words, oral and written expression…

“This incubation phase has made it possible to refine our approach, inspired by our experience in the Nord department, and to adapt it to the local context,” says Pierre Fourny. This time has indeed made it possible to identify and mobilize partners in the cultural and social field, to measure the complexity of the implementation of the project, to specify the essential points. Because the ambition was commensurate with the challenge: to convince politicians of the ability of an artistic project to provide relevant and effective responses to a serious problem, to build a network of social actors working with cultural stakeholders, to develop an approach to identify and involve people in a situation of illiteracy, often in denial or invisibility, etc. Two study trips were organised by the team: “Elected officials and technicians were able to observe and draw inspiration from the good practices of the various cultural operators and social actors in the fight against illiteracy in the Avesnois” explains Natacha Thaon Santini, producer. ALIS has also forged local links, in particular with training institutions for people with illiteracy, media libraries and with the Crii (Centre Ressources iltrisme et illectronisme). Typonomads have also been enriched with a digital version with interactive tablets. Finally, on the occasion of a second round of funding, the company has set up “dramaturgical laboratories” in Château-Thierry, Fère-en-Tardenois and Villers-Cotterêts in 2022 and 2023 for amateur artists who have difficulty reading.