Papillon, a creation by Françoise Pétrovitch for PEGASE

On Friday 10 June, pupils, teachers, teaching teams, artists and members of the Academic Delegation for Cultural Action were able to discover a preview of Papillon, a work specially created by Françoise Petrovitch for PEGASE, an experimental programme for the generalisation of the arts in schools. The visual artist is the godmother of this^4th edition which brings together 5 schools of the Academy of Versailles from kindergarten to high school.

Papillon, an original creation by Françoise Pétrovitch and Hervé Plumet, for PEGASE

Patron of the program, the visual artist Françoise Pétrovitch, in collaboration with Hervé Plumet, has imagined Papillon, a new work for PEGASE. In a colourful and poetic universe, populated by beings and animals, the artist reveals his gestures in the image on a series of interspersed glass plates. Between imagination and reality, these ephemeral drawings made in ink flow, interpose, disappear, vibrating the themes dear to Françoise Pétrovitch: the intimate, the fragment, the disappearance, the transition in an atmosphere that is alternately clear or nocturnal, which can evoke the troubled waters of adolescence.

Throughout the school year, she shared the steps of creating this work via an online application (padlet). The students and teaching teams of the partner schools were able to discover and follow the technical and artistic approach of Papillon, from its conception to its realization.

As part of the sponsorship, a print from his Rougir collection was also welcomed in the CE2-CM1-CM2 classes of the Saint Hilaire school but also within families. The students worked on this work and maintained a correspondence with Francoise Pétrovitch.

The 5th graders of the Eugénie Cotton College in Argenteuil were able to work on intaglio engraving with Matthieu Perramant, art master and former student of Françoise Pétrovitch at the Estienne school. From the study of the Arthurian legend, they created their own coats of arms.

A day of exchange under the sign of reunion

This screening took place in Bagneux where all the actors of PEGASE were gathered for a day of exchange and sharing. After two years of remote meetings, we were all happy to meet again to share the artistic and cultural education projects carried out in the 5 establishments. Students and teachers staged the restitution of their creations on the dance floor of the World’s Smallest Circus: a proliferation of web radios, escape games, videos, frescoes, garden layouts, poems, comics, choreographies, digital applications, etc. mixing all the arts and all school disciplines, from kindergarten to high school.

This year we also welcomed representatives of PLANEA, an artistic and cultural education program that we are developing in parallel in Spain. Bringing together 15 pilot schools, it is being deployed in the 3 autonomous communities of Madrid, Valencia and Andalusia, in collaboration with the Public Authorities of Education and Invisible Pedagogías, PERMEA and ZEMOS98.

PLANEA offers a collaborative framework for schools with the support of cultural mediators. Having artists in residence at the school, setting up or promoting a school choir or a theatre troupe, designing a pedagogical training course open to families, inventing mathematics teaching units with art as a resource… Anything is allowed as long as the project is adapted to the school community and responds to a shared social challenge! PLANEA offers training, meetings, resources, workshops for teachers.

Like PEGASE, the artists, teachers, mediators and cultural institutions who participate in PLANEA share the same vision: art is a singular practice and knowledge that deserves a relevant role in the school by contributing to critical thinking and creativity, to personal and collective development to meet the challenges facing our societies.

PEGASE, a program at the heart of Citizen Art

Since 2018, PEGASE has been developing artistic activities from kindergarten to high school, in collaboration with the teaching teams and cultural actors of the territory. More than 7,000 students and 80 teachers as well as some fifty cultural partners have given life to more than 100 projects covering various artistic and scientific fields. Each project is designed at the crossroads of several school disciplines, combining the knowledge of the program, meetings with the artists, visits to cultural sites, practice sessions giving rise to various collective creations.

It is the subject of a research-evaluation conducted by the International University Observation Education and Prevention, under the direction of Benjamin Moignard, lecturer in educational sciences, the results of which will be shared in 2023.

This experimental program, made possible thanks to the partnership with the Academy of Versailles, is one of the pillars of the Citizen Art axis of our foundation by emphasizing what is important to us: the development and success of young people, collective emulation, sometimes unexpected encounters, through collaborations between teachers, disciplines and cultural partners, but also the sharing of emotions, empathy and wonder aroused by art.