A journey to explore heritage with the laureates of the Committed Artist Award

The five winners of the Committed Artist Award are meeting for the first time – at the invitation of one of them, Patrick Bouchain – for an out-of-the-ordinary, generous and joyful experience: Le Grand Voyage, an adventure that will be part of the European Heritage Days. A different way of approaching heritage through an unprecedented tour of the outskirts of Paris in which Citizen Art will be the protagonist.

The five French and Spanish laureates meet for the first time

In 2020, we decided to create the Committed Artist Award in recognition of the work of artists capable of transforming dominant models through remarkable actions in response to different social problems.

The five French and Spanish artists selected in this first edition will meet from 17 to 19 September on the occasion of the European Heritage Days.

“This first meeting of laureates of the Committed Artist Award will take place within the framework of the event entitled Le Grand Voyage, a mobilizing, supportive and original experience that will bring together young people, institutions, associations, thinkers and artists. Patrick Bouchain, also recognized with the Prize, organizes this event that dialogues with our commitment in favor of an art that truly is a driver of citizenship and emotions, capable not only of marveling us either individually or collectively, but also of mobilizing us and pushing us to act,” explains Marion Desmares, Head of the Citizen Art Program – France, which continues: “Far from a classic ceremony, this will be an opportunity for meeting with the public, for the emergence of possible synergies between the winners and for dialogue around art, the engine of social transformations.”

Neïl Beloufa, Santiago Cirugeda, Julio Jara and Cristina Pato will go out to meet neighbors and young people. To this end, they will organise and participate in a series of events orchestrated by Mélanie Bouteloup, an independent curator, on an unprecedented route through the outskirts of the French capital, from Gennevilliers to Bagneux. As a finishing touch, on Saturday, September 18, we will hold a meeting in the tent of the Plus Petit Cirque du Monde, where we will reflect together on new forms of education, culture, environment and living heritage.

These artists, from different disciplines and backgrounds, have embarked on collective adventures as original as they are exemplary, on a larger or smaller scale, seeking to provide a response to social problems as diverse as memory loss, social exclusion, intercultural relations or urban planning.

Le Grand Voyage: to make known the richness and multiplicity of young people who inhabit the outskirts of Paris

Coinciding with the European Heritage Days, the Preuve par 7, Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde and the T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers have imagined a Grand Metropolitan Journey, organized in collaboration with our Foundation and with the support of the municipalities of Bagneux, Gennevilliers and Rueil Malmaison and the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area.

Shows and improvised artistic pieces, guided tours, performances and readings make up the program of this journey that we will travel sailing, on foot, by bicycle and camping. A journey that we are especially excited to be part of. “Heritage is not only what we build. It is what we inherit: gastronomic culture, natural environment, gestures learned and transmitted through work or the arts. It is also what we want to preserve in order to transmit it later: what we sow, protect and cultivate today, hoping that tomorrow will be useful for generations to come.”, explains Fanny Taillandier, programmer of the event, who adds: “Our desire is to stop understanding heritage as what we ‘bequeath’ —Adopting the position of the elderly— but as what we ‘inherit’ —From the place of young people— and that we choose to transmit and value because we consider it important”.

Grand Voyage Programming Preview, September 17-19, 2021

• 5 committed artists
• Dozens of teenagers who will guide us through the metropolitan area
• 100 campers gathered around the fire
• Music, dance and circus on a barge
• 4 routes of 25 kilometers
• Locks, ports and stopovers
• Several mayors of the Île-de-France metropolitan area in sneakers
• Unidentified floating objects
• Lectures, debates and readings
• A cultural meeting centre dedicated to the heritage of the cities on the outskirts of Paris

Citizen Art, an engine of social transformation

Like our collaborators, we are convinced that youth and transmission between generations are central elements of what we understand as heritage. This conviction has pushed us to revisit these European days in the company of young people and artists with the aim of giving them a renewed impetus, taking them to different territories and imagining on this occasion a greener, more inclusive and more prosperous future.

“Needless to say, we live in an uncertain world, immersed in a kind of permanent and multiform crisis. In this context, artists play a decisive role in society. Creative and particularly inspiring figures since the dawn of time, artists have the ability to draw the maps of the present and construct new imaginaries. But today as yesterday, beyond using the symbolic language of art, some of them decide to undertake initiatives strongly linked to reality,” says Anastassia Makridou-Bretonneau, head of the Foundation’s Citizen Art line. “In their role as citizen artists, they make a long-term commitment to concrete and demanding actions. They put their imagination, their know-how and their experience at the service of others and give voice and wings to other possible realities.”

This event will be an opportunity to see and experience Citizen Art as we have been promoting it since our creation more than 10 years ago: a shared art, generator of meaning and social bond, the result of the encounter between artists, scientists, teachers, institutions, associations and citizens. An art that accompanies each and every one of us, that activates our capacities for reflection and empathy to imagine a sustainable future, a counterpoint to the modern fiction of an individual, autonomous life, emancipated from the community, from the body, from the countless living beings to which we owe our existence.

After more than a year of health crisis, it is a real pleasure to meet again after the summer break to celebrate art and culture together, undoubtedly very important in our lives. Until then… we wish you a happy holiday!

Copyrights : Affiche © Simon Denise / La Preuve par 7; Portraits artistes © Atelier Neïl Beloufa, Willy Vainqueur, Belén González, Isaias Grinolo, Xan Padrón; Portrait Anastassia Makridou-Bretonneau © Judith Sansó