The project is based on the encounter between inhabitants living on the same territory but who don’t know each others: exiles, youth and older ones, unemployed and employees, in civic service, social workers, cultural operators, persons with disabilities or socially and economically vulnerable, students….
Following Patrick Chamoiseau, it is about building “unpredictable and transversal fraternities”.
For a few months, women and men from different backgrounds share their points of view, their sensitivities, theirs knowledges and experiences in order to build together a video art screening program (out of about 40 films from the archives of Festival Les Instants Vidéo). Playing an active role in the heart of their city, they organise a screening event in order to share their selection with an audience, in a cinema of Marseille.
Each atelier is inspired by a poetic thematic:
- in 2017, When the stranger comes, from a poem by Yannis Ritsos.
- in 2019, Since the world is made this way, our dreams must be even more tenacious by Abdelatif Laâbi
- in 2020, The beauty of a boundless gesture, from the writtings by Annie Lebrun
- in 2022, While the fields are burning, by the rock band Niagara
- in 2024, Waking up is not enough to become a butterfly by Rupi Kaur
They might say
Of course, we don’t belong to the arts and culture community, we don’t have the adequate language, our experience is very new. But we are standing up for the right to be in front of you today to defend our choices. We are proud of our collective work, even if we do completely understand that some of you may not agree with it. But then, it is your turn to explain why.
Video art, imagination at the helm
We all have (more or less) a television or film culture, we all can express a “I like” or “I don’t like”. Video art works, experimental and/or poetical forms are open to sensitive and intellectual experiences, and rely on the intelligence of everyone.
- the usual standards to evaluate the quality or the interest of the films cannot be applied; the themes, the content of the works (that famous “what is it all about”) is closely connected to the form, as it is for a poem, and therefor we have to grasp the images in all their language complexity.
- the form is as important as the content, it give space to those who are not comfortable with the (french) language;
- there are multiple levels of lecture of a video artwork, one can enter it with the thematic, another one with its rhythm and its colours, with the gestures or the originality of the editing …
- the polysemy of the works (all the messages are not explicit) is an invitation to free interpretations, to mutual listening, to personal speeches.
A keystone, the partnership
The encounter of these two professional fields (social & culture) cannot be taken for granted. To imagine a new way of working together, it was necessary to meet, to listen to each other, to become tame, and over the years and the sharing of experiences, the project Les Programm’actors arouse taking into account the desires and realities of all. Let us remind that the project was born from the will of social organisation to go deeper in the relationship with Instants Vidéo.
We must also underline that the four partner associations are supporting social workers involvement during the whole project, that is to say at least 13 professionals take part in the experience just like the “users” of their associations.
ADPEI a non-profit association working since 1987 in the field of social and solidarity economy, with persons in a social distress.
SARA Logisol main goal is to struggle against poverty, distress and social exclusion. Its social activity is wide (social emergency, accommodation, employment…) and can be in direction of families, asylum seekers, refugees, homeless…
ANEF Provence (Association Nationale d’Entraide Féminine) founded in 1959 seeks, without any political or confessional bias, to work towards protection, education, social and professional inclusion of persons (children, teenagers, adults) at risk of moral, physical danger or victims of exclusion.
ARI aimed at promoting and supporting the integration of person in a situation of disabilities or living in precarious conditions. For 30 years (1985), ARI has been acting on social, educational, cultural and professional integration together with the necessary health care axis.
Espoir-Provence – GEM
Founded in 1982, Espoir-Provence is a family association recognised as being of public interest, which relies on the active participation of its volunteers. Its aim is to do all it can to help people with serious mental illnesses who are under the care of a psychiatrist and have stabilised, and to help them regain a social life.
The GEM (Groupe d’Entraide Mutuelle) is a meeting place where people with mental health problems who live independently can come together to offer and share cultural and leisure activities to break their isolation.
Few words of social workers who took part in the project:
- “The audiences AND for the professional teams feel concern (it takes more time with the teams)
- Our publics are asking for encounters with the publics of other structures
- Asylum seekers have very few rights and therefor very few possible activities. These actions allow them to have a constructive activity and to discover the hosting country through encounters, culture and freedom of expression.
- To allow sensitive topics to be discussed.
- I never thought that the persons I support for administrative matters, would be more open to dialogue on video art works than I am.
- We broke the representations we had on our public.
- It is a breath of fresh air in our routine; there is no obligation of a result, everyone can head up, it brings desire, smiles and energy.
- We are trying to build cross-overs with the society as a whole.”
What dwells in us indeed, is to try to invent the conditions of a society where diversity is a strength, where the shared goal is to bring humanity together.
