At Instants Vidéo, we believe that artistic issues and cultural and poetic rights are intertwined, in dialogue and mutually enriching, and that their links are inseparable and indissoluble. That’s why we have launched the project Les programm’acteur.rice.s (2017).
Here are some elements of our approach.
Join us at the Gyptis cinema on Wednesday 5 June 2024 at 6pm
to discover the programme put together by the programm’acteur.rice.s.
Step 1 : discovery of the artworks
For several months now, 5 groups of inhabitants of Marseille have been scouring the Instants Vidéo office in search of works they would like to share with their friends, neighbors and strangers… Together, they watched and pooled their views, sensibilities, knowledge and experience to build an international video art program that echoes the phrase You do not just wake up and become a butterfly by Indo-Canadian poet Rupi Kaur….
This (large) artistic collective will then present its public screening, in June and October, at the opening of the 37th Les Instants Vidéo Festival.
We’re very attached to this atypical and human project which enables us to enrich our own practice as images sharers and get out of social grouping in art world to actively cross with other such as social or healthcare.
We bear in mind that bringing together different professional worlds is not something that can be taken for granted, and that it’s a process that needs time.
Likewise, it’s vital to bear in mind that nothing can be taken for granted, and that the process of building trust must be constantly nurtured. To invent a new form of working together, we had to meet, tame and listen to each other, so that over the years and through experience, we could develop a project that took into account everyone’s desires and realities.
Step 2 : time for discussions
Through activities that encourage encounters with and around images, participants have become familiar with an audiovisual poetic language and have acquired critical analysis tools through exchange. In this way, they can appreciate works from a variety of angles (sensitive, aesthetic, conceptual, etc.), and make links with their own experiences, references or the current context.
To achieve this, we create a setting of kindness, listening and conviviality.
After the welcome ritual, in which the programm’actors and members of the Instants Vidéo team share a coffee, the session begins with a warm-up game to get into a different kind of relationship, prepare our gaze and get into collective condition.
Then comes the time for discussion, supported by exercises that call on language and non-verbal modes of expression. It’s a way of going through a sensitive and artistic experience with video works.
Just because we see the same film doesn’t mean we see the same thing and it’s by pooling our different perceptions that we move towards a collective selection that will be as close as possible to what we want viewers to discover.
Step 3 : making a choice
Now it’s time to choose, first individually and then collectively, the films that the participants wish to share, justifying their choice in a singular way. Programming images is a major responsibility (media, museum, TV), because it means deciding what society can or must see. Choosing together is not just a matter of adding up favorable opinions.
You have to be able to argue, if possible using the dual register of sensibility and thought. Which video do I want to show and why? Working together in a collective process that combines artistic practice and social reflection, the programm’actors will put together a program of 10 films, like putting together a string of pearls.
The idea is to assemble different shapes, colors and materials into a harmonious whole, according to our own criteria. What meaning is revealed by the order in which the videos are arranged? How does Rupi Kaur’s phrase resonate with our selection?
Then, they can present it to you.
