CoART-19 - À table!

Three weeks of cultural reflection on Corona: experiences of sharing and participation

Dora Maar House, Menérbes and Provence Academy, Saignon

À table

During the Corona crises of 2020, social interaction was reduced to "social distancing". Eating together is a metaphor for a necessary response to this crisis. 

Eating, working or playing together at the same table enables us to respond to the challenges of the last few months in a social, intuitive, playful and rigorous way in the most direct way. Eating together is a necessity; unlike other activities of cultural practice, we cannot interrupt it. And cooking is composition and presentation, sensory experience and food, social activity, exchange, solidarity and care. 

Provence is known for its hospitality, its scents and flavours. Spending a summer evening outdoors dining is one of the most magical experiences in Provence. Here, families, friends, artists and intellectuals come together to talk to each other and participate in larger discourses.

At the same time, we contrast the digitalization of culture. In spring 2020, many cultural activities were translated into the virtual and survived in the emergency room of streaming technology. We will examine the tension between old and new formats. We will reflect on the blessings of the new technology in culture, but also on the potential dangers for artistic practice and at the same time reflect on the importance of art residencies such as the Dora Maar House.

À table is organised by the Provence Academy in Saignon in collaboration with the Dora Maar House in Menérbes and with the support of the Department of Culture of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Objective:

From August 3-23, 2020, Christoph Klütsch and Daniel Plettenberg from the Provence-Akademie (Saignon & Hamburg) and Gwen Strauss from the Dora-Maar-Haus in Menérbes will bring together artists* and thinkers* in the Dora-Maar-Haus to create a collective multimedia collage that will reflect each participant*s individual COVID-19 experience and will address the larger questions we need to ask ourselves.

The goal is to create an interdisciplinary, yet very individual and personal collage that reflects this special moment and the participants* with their questions and impressions in a snapshot. Such a snapshot is important to remind us of it later and to be able to reflect the flow of emotions to set new impulses. 

How do we deal with Corona and its effects on a personal, artistic, philosophical and social level? The situation described above raises a number of questions that we invite you to discuss:

• How are we affected concretely? How have we changed?
  
• What have we learned? What new possibilities have we found? What old ideas have we let go?
  
• How are social distancing, cultural practice and digitalisation connected?
  

During the three weeks there will also be space for spontaneous performances, readings and demonstrations. At the end of the stay we will publish a brochure with the results and put short video clips online. 

Formats:

The project CoART-19 - À table! combines 3 different format levels:

• Stay of 4 artists* for each week over a period of 2 weeks (8 residents in total)
  
• A Table/Zu-Tisch: Three discursive dinners on 8, 15 and 22 August 2020, with Residence artists* with residents*, artists* and visitors* from the area (Marseille - Arles - Nimes - Avignon - Aix-en-Provence, locals on the one hand, but also visiting artists from the world on the other, etc.) 
  
• Video interviews with at least 10 participants* from all over the world 
  

Participation:

If you are interested in participating please contact us at info@provence-academy.com  . Your participation can be an online session, a virtual workshop, a participation in one of the dinners, a suggestion in the form of a text, a personal statement or an experience of the last months you want to share. CoArt is an open format, anything is possible, many things are possible, let us surprise ourselves and others.

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Made possible through funding from The Nancy B. Negley Artist Residency Program, The Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media and The Alfred Toepfer Stiftung FWS

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