The podcast of artists who are changing the game: Season 2

From 17 November, we invite you to meet every other Thursday to discover projects that have benefited from our support for their social, educational, environmental or simply human impact. “The Voices of Citizen Art” is the podcast of the artists who bring us together and change the game!

Art and culture to meet the multiple challenges of our society

Citizen art allows us to get together to invent, stay curious, share new imaginations and change the game in this changing world. For more than 10 years, we have supported a wide variety of people and projects on the path of transition, encouraging crossovers between disciplines and approaches to bring out innovative solutions. The podcast series Les Voix de l’art citoyen goes to meet those who give heart and life to these multiple projects across France.

Projects that bring transformation and hope throughout France

During the first season, we handed our microphone to teachers, researchers, musicians, visual artists, children in difficulty, students, mediators, architects, poets… In the heart of the Alps or on the Opal Coast, in middle and high schools in the Paris region, in researchers’ laboratories and artists’ studios, we talked about climate change, access to culture, the power of emancipation, the magic of digital technology, new forms of urban planning.

On the road to season 2

From November 17, we will broadcast a new episode every other Thursday, on our website but also on all listening platforms (Spotify, Deezer, Podcast Addict, Aacast…). Don’t hesitate to subscribe to it!

Eric Minh Cuong Castaing: dance and body prevented

Eric Minh Cuong Castaing is a choreographer and visual artist. Through his Shonen company, based in Marseille, he brings dance out of the studio to bring together dancers and amateurs with “impeded” bodies: children and adults with disabilities, patients with vulnerable bodies… Together, they invent a gesture on stage that liberates and questions our view of atypical bodies. During the performance, only the gesture, the poetry, and the emotion matter. For this inclusive approach, which has been a constant thread throughout his career, Eric Minh Cuong Castaing received the 2022 Committed Citizen Artist Award, presented by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.

The journalist Emilie Chaudet met him at his home in Marseille.
To find out more about SHONEN and its programming: http://www.shonen.info/

This interview is conducted by Emilie Chaudet and conducted by Guillaume Girault. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez. Voices of Citizen Art is a podcast by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Artagon Marseille: artists for neighbours

Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni have transformed the former Ricard factory, in the north of Marseille, into a place teeming with ideas and projects: it welcomes about fifty artists or cultural structures for 18 months, long enough to launch their practice as young creators. But also to create a link with the inhabitants of the Sainte Marthe district, and to set up artistic projects with them. The graphic designer Jeanne Ostorero was thus able to accompany a group of teenagers in the design of personalized football jerseys. Stroll and meetings with Léa Minod.
To learn more about Artagon, visit Artagon.org

This report is written by Léa Minod and directed by Emmanuel Baux. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez. Voices of Citizen Art is a podcast by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Valérie Mréjen and Mohamed El Khatib: An art centre at the Ehpad

Valérie Mréjen is a novelist, videographer and visual artist. Mohamed El Khatib is an author and director. In 2022, they created an Art Center together at the Les Blés d’Or nursing home in Saint-Baldoph, near Chambéry. A centre for residents to be in the presence of art on a daily basis and not only when an artist comes to lead a workshop. “The poetry is already there,” says Mohamed El Khatib. “You just have to be attentive to bringing out new stories together.” The duo has brought with them about fifteen artists: Yohanne Lamoulère, Mireille Blanc, Dominique Petitgand, Alain Cavalier…
Les Blés d’Or is now a place of life that welcomes people with a loss of autonomy, artists and works.

Valérie Mréjen and Mohamed El Khatib have received the 2022 Committed Citizen Artist Prize awarded by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.
To find out more about the Les blés d’or art centre: Les blés d’or

This interview is conducted by Émilie Chaudet and directed by Guillaume Girault, with Jules Benvéniste as sound engineer. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez. Voices of Citizen Art is a podcast by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Paris Mozart Orchestra: A conductor at the college

Claire Gibault created the Paris Mozart Orchestra 11 years ago. With her committed musicians, she takes students and middle school teachers on board to create ambitious musical pieces. As the creation progresses, children discover instruments, the power of music, the pleasure of creating together and playing for others… At the Marais de Villiers de Montreuil middle school, fifth grade students were able to participate in the play Un jardin en mouvement, composed by Alexandra Grimal. It’s a way to “plant a seed” for the future, says Jairo Coronado Vargas, their music teacher. And to bring young people schooled in schools classified as Priority Education Networks to rub shoulders with the world of culture and music. Thank you to the students of the fifth year May-Britt Moser, named after the Norwegian neuroscientist, from the Marais de Villiers de Montreuil college.
To find out more about Paris Mozart Orchestra https://parismozartorchestra.com/
This episode is written by Léa Minod and directed by Guillaume Girault. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez. It first aired on 9/06/2022.

Royaumont Abbey: Enchantment of sound in the open air

Musician and conductor, Jean-Philippe Wurtz directs the musical creation department of the Royaumont Abbey, in the Oise region. Accompanied by historians, acousticians and musicologists, he embarked on a project as innovative as it was unique: to rebuild the acoustics of the phantom abbey church, dismantled during the Revolution. Instead of rebuilding the walls and vaults, they recreated its sound architecture in the open air as in the thirteenth century. Art is here a tool of investigation and research that provides new imaginaries.
This project, combining technical prowess and creative imagination, is carried out in partnership with IRCAM – Centre Pompidou, the CNRS SON:S network, and the Music Unit studio with the duo Martin Antiphon and Manuel Poletti. “What we will listen to is not the past, but an evocation of the past, mixed with the environment, to have a different perspective,” explains Manuel Poletti.
Léa Minod met them during the first bluffing tests in public. The inauguration is planned with a big concert in the autumn of 2024.

To find out more about the Royaumont Abbey and its programme, click here
This episode is written by Léa Minod and directed by Guillaume Girault. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez.
THE VOICES OF CITIZEN ART is a podcast of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Barthélémy Toguo: Sowing seeds of art in Cameroon

Barthélémy Toguo, an internationally renowned Franco-Cameroonian artist, has been working since the 2000s for the sustainable development of an artistic place in Cameroon, on the western highlands: Bandjoun Station. A place that welcomes students from the surrounding schools, artists in residence and residents… This new model of artistic action open to the world, integrates an original social, agricultural and environmental dimension. After studying Fine Arts in Abidjan, Grenoble and Dusseldorf, “I had to return to Africa to give back what I had learned, by creating something physical and concrete,” explains Barthélémy Toguo for whom “Giving is an artistic gesture”.

Emilie Chaudet met him in his studio in Paris, between two planes.

Barthélémy Toguo received the 2022 Committed Citizen Artist Award from the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation.
To find out more about Barthélémy Toguo, visit the Lelong gallery website

This interview is conducted by Émilie Chaudet and directed by Emmanuel Baux, with Jules Benvéniste as sound engineer. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez. Voices of Citizen Art is a podcast by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio

The Water Room: Country Storytellers

In Le Favril, a village of 500 inhabitants in the Hauts-de-France region, La chambre d’eau is a multidisciplinary artists’ residency site that supports contemporary creation and focuses on the cultural development of rural areas. For the past 10 years, this associative structure co-founded by Vincent Dumesnil has brought together artists and residents.

With the “Parler Debout” project, Anne Brochot and Marion Fabien, visual artists, Margaux Liénard, musician, and Charlotte Proneau, actress, lead the inhabitants towards a reappropriation of places and legends in perdition. Stories come back to life, gardens bloom and residents come together around a common and civic artistic project.

To find out more: The water chamber

This episode is written by Emilie Chaudet and directed by Guillaume Girault. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez.
THE VOICES OF CITIZEN ART is a podcast of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Tomorrow Fessenheim: the living footprint of the plant

What will Fessenheim look like in 10, 20 or 50 years’ time? To get an idea, we need to understand what this nuclear power plant means to those who work and live nearby. For years, political debate has prevented people from expressing their personal, even emotional views. It is this very message that visual artist Elise Alloin seeks to bring to life through her project “Demain Fessenheim,” in collaboration with the Kunsthalle, Mulhouse’s contemporary art center, and its team, including Emma Werler. This multifaceted portrait paints a picture of a place whose true contours we had forgotten to examine closely amid the flurry of political and media debates.

To find out more about the Kunsthalle and Elise Alloin’s residencies, click here

This episode is written by Emilie Chaudet and directed by Vincent Decque. Executive producer: Isabelle Duriez.
THE VOICES OF CITIZEN ART is a podcast of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.

Special Episode – The Art of Encounters

For the past two seasons, the Voices of Citizen Art has been taking you to meet artists and discover projects that move society. That’s how citizen art starts. A door that the artist pushes open when he is not expected. A college, a nursing home, a medico-educational institute, a reinvested factory… where he exchanges with those who are rarely seen in cultural venues. With Léa Minod, we invite you to revisit what is the essence of citizen art.

With Claire Gibault of the Paris Mozart Orchestra, Ambre Delaunay of the Eugénie Cotton college in Argenteuil for the PEGASE program, the novelist and videographer Valérie Mréjen and the director and author Mohamed el Khatib for the Blés d’Or art center, Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni, the founders of Artagon, Victor, cultural mediator at the Chambre d’eau au Favril, Emmanuel Paris, deputy director of cultural affairs at the Côte d’Opale children’s homes, choreographer Eric Minh Cuong Castaing, head of the Shonen Company, and Stéphane Sauzedde, former director of ESAA, the Annecy art school.

We look forward to seeing you for season 3 of the Voices of Citizen Art in the fall of 2023.

This episode is written by Léa Minod and directed by Guillaume Girault. Production: Isabelle Duriez. THE VOICES OF CITIZEN ART is a podcast of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, produced by wave.audio.