TROIS CENT SOIXANTE REVUE / POLITIQUES DE LA MEMOIRE / HAÏTI /

NICOLA LO CALZO

FRIEZE / WHAT ARTISTS DO WHEN THEY CAN'T SLEEP /

RUT BLEES LUXEMBURG

ACUMEN Magazine / La route des songes / Taisiia Cherkasova

The Art Newspaper Edition Française / L'art contemporain du Bénin fait escale à Rabat / Emo de Medeiros

CITIES OF THE NIGHT AT RIBA LONDON / FESTIVAL OF ARCHITECTURE

01 June - 30 June

What if the night, often neglected and underestimated in the discourse on cities and architecture, is actually the lifeworld that holds the keys to our everyday experience. Might the night be more than a rotation that recharges our daily life? Could the night be a transformative space, that lets us dream our collective future?

For the second time RIBA hosts the Royal College of Art during the London Festival of Architecture, bringing together three artists who re-present and re-inhabit the urban night: Rut Blees Luxemburg, Alisa Oleva and Chooc Ly Tan.

In daytime, most everything is apprehended under the light of just one furiously burning sun. But as the planet turns and daylight fades, we see things coloured by a medley of embers, the jaundiced haze emitted by a sodium streetlight, the pale glow of a screen, the ancient shimmer of deceased stars, and so many other disparate and distant points of illumination. While objects are uniformly presented to vision under one radiant light source during the day, those same objects are seen at night in a luminescent range that has no hierarchical direction.

Urban Night Practice is an artistic investigation into this metamorphic potential that emerges in cities during the night. The artists in this exhibition — Rut Blees Luxemburg, Chooc Ly Tan, and Alisa Oleva — all have practices that are receptive to the possibility of a transformation that is paradoxically rendered most clearly in darkness. As such, the artworks in this show are composed by night but given here as proposals for new ways to navigate and envisage the urban landscape by day.

Elliott Mickleburgh

Join us for the party on the 22 June 7pm onward 

DJ set by Chooc Ly Tan

RIBA First Floor Gallery, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD

ESCLAVAGE, MÉMOIRES NORMANDES. ROUEN, L’ENVERS D’UNE PROSPÉRITÉ

A selection of photographs from the research KAM by Nicola Lo Calzo is presented at Corderie Vallois in Rouen as part of the exhibition, « Esclavage, Mémoires normandes » a first major exhibition in the process of recognizing the history and memory of slavery in Normandy. Prints from the series AYITI, REGLA, AGOUDA are presented along with works by artists Emmanuelle Gall, Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque, Elisa Moris Vai between others.

The exhibition on the memory of slavery will open on May 10, 2023, at the end of a collegial process involving the towns of Honfleur, Le Havre and the Rouen Normandy Metropolis, as well as various museums, municipal and departmental archives and the "Villes et Pays d'art et d'histoire" label…

The aim?

To shed light on Normandy's involvement in the triangular trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, by comparing objects in collections and contemporary accounts. Bordeaux, Nantes and La Rochelle have been the focus of much research, and are now taking responsibility for their role in the slave trade and the ensuing trade in Western Europe through various cultural and commemorative events. Until now, Normandy has remained somewhat on the sidelines of this general movement in favor of greater transparency in local - town, regional -, individual and collective history. In fact, it is the responsibility of Europeans, and in particular of these coastal towns, in the crime against humanity that was slavery (law no. 2001-434 of May 21, 2001). The Rouen-Le Havre-Honfleur conglomerate, however, had a weight comparable to that of Bordeaux or Nantes... It was absolutely necessary to revisit this history, not only from an ethical point of view, but also in view of its medium- and long-term consequences for the region and its development.

Tracing history

The ship-owning families - in other words, those who financed the boat trips in order to make a profit from them - were mostly from Rouen. However, as the boats left from Le Havre and, to a lesser extent, Honfleur, it was long claimed that the triangular trade did not concern Rouen, despite the fact that it was heavily involved in financing this commercial eco-system…

Genesis

Long before the 18th century, Normans were accustomed to transatlantic travel. The ember trade in Brazil and attempts at colonization in New France took them to the Americas, while the first Norman trading posts were opened in West Africa as early as the 17th century. A number of objects document this way of life and, in particular, the environment of Norman navigation: a beautiful astrolabe, maps and ivory objects, whose very material bears witness to early links with the African continent. A yoyo from the collections of the Musée de la Ferronnerie Le Secq des Tournelles is particularly emblematic, illustrating the ambivalence of the period.

A very present past

While the exhibition at Corderie Vallois brings to light certain elements of the past, what is perhaps most interesting is the echo that this effort to elucidate it finds in some of our contemporary issues. At a time when clothing is being manufactured in India, for example, at a human cost...
Textile fiber and cotton fabric production was one of Rouen's most important sectors in the triangular trade. The factories in the Cailly valley were particularly involved in the production of indiennes, a type of painted or printed cotton canvas. But it's not just about documenting the past for its own sake, as the exhibition questions our post-industrial era in the light of it.

Exhibition curator
Mathilde Schneider, Director of Musée Beauvoisine, Chief Curator of Heritage
Isabelle Gard, Project Manager, Public Services
Bruno Varin, assistant curator and cultural mediator
Scientific assistance: Simon Jean-Nebbache, PhD in museology

Practical information
From May 10, 2023 to September 17, 2023
Musée Industriel de la Corderie Vallois, Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville
Open daily from 1.30 pm to 6 pm
Admission: €4

Access
from Paris by train > Rouen - Rouen Rive-Droite stop
from Rouen with the T2 astuce network > Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville - Mairie V. stop Schoelcher
from Hameau de Frévaux with the F4 network >Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville - André Gide stop

Recognized as an exhibition of national interest by the French Ministry of Culture, it receives exceptional financial support from the French government.

The virtual exhibition, soon to go online, receives special support from FRAME

*One ticket for one of the three tours entitles the holder to reduced rates for the other two.

Fortunes and servitudes at Hôtel Dubocage de Bléville, 1 rue Jéröme Bellarmato, Le Havre. Exhibition from May 10 to November 10, 2023. Full price: €5 / concessions: 3€

D'une terre à l'autre at the Musée Eugène Boudin, Honfleur. Exhibition from May 10 to November 10, 2023. Full price: €8 / Reduced: €6.50

Libération / L'Amitié, un mode de vie très politique / Nicola Lo Calzo

Le Monde / Itvan Kebadian

Centre Claude Cahun / Juste à côté de nous, Amazonie

31 May — 03 September 2023

Parc du Grand Blottereau et Centre Claude Cahun, Nantes, France

Between May and September 2023, the Claude Cahun Centre for Contemporary Photography in Nantes and the Rencontres photographiques de Guyane have imagined a co-commissioning of two exhibitions entitled Juste à côté de nous, Amazonie. This regional cooperation project will be held simultaneously, between May and August, at the Grand Blottereau Park and, between July and September, at the Claude Cahun Centre for the Voyage à Nantes.

The aim of this collaboration is to create a territorial continuity for the artists. The exhibitions thus delve into a selection of series produced during the residencies or research in the archives of local photographers supported by the Rencontres photographiques de Guyane since 2013. The works of Nicolas Derné, Karl Joseph, Guillaume Martial, Julie Boileau, Nicola Lo Calzo, Vano, Mirtho Linguet and Karen Paulina Biswell look at and stage the dense life of men and women confronted with everything that nature opens, swallows and forgets.

Press Release