June 26th [Livestream]

Behind media speeches and generalized statements, there are people. Women and men who live in and shape the territory. They are engaged on a local scale and use their creative energy to defend a social, political or ecological purpose. Through short video portraits, we give them the floor. What does the notion of community mean to them? How do their engagements affect the territory? Faced with the microphone that young journalists from both sides of the Atlantic have handed them, the inhabitants open up to us. And their words echo each other. The capsules were produced by the Invisible Institute (an investigative journalism company based on the South Side) and by La Chaise pliante (a media outlet being developed by Nawufal Mohamed and Lucas Roxo from Clichy-sous-Bois/Montfermeil).

If, in the South Side of Chicago as in the Parisian suburbs, urban renewal policies seem essential to the renovation of urban spaces, they sometimes destroy both the neighborhoods and the communities that live there. Thus, how to meet the demands of a city and its elected officials without making invisible the inhabitants and stories that make up the urban space ? This is a complex and up-to-date issue, discussed by Thomas Kirszbaum and Edward G. Goetz. Specialists in urban renewal policies and territorial discrimination, they offer a critical and informed academic perspective on this subject, based on cross-references and on-field experiences.

The Ateliers Médicis offers carte blanche to a number of artists, exploring and experimenting, with their diverse points of view, different perspectives, all taking place inside the universe of the internet. In the current world context for art and the circulation of data and communications, a certain tension exists between the increase in the touring of art works and the loss in value of these works – or even the collapse of the production elements necessary for the process. The artists will explore, experiment with and evoke the ambivalence of our digital relationships. The works of Josèfa Ntjam, Julien Creuzet and Alexandria Eregbu are presented in this program. Others are to be released in the coming months: Max Guy, Zakkiyyah Najeebah Dumas-O'neal, Tonika Johnson, Fo Wilson & Dorothée Munyaneza...

Cathy Bouvard is the director of Ateliers Médicis, a creative space and residency for artists of all disciplines of all peripheries, located in Clichy-Montfermeil. Connie Spreen founded Experimental Station in 2006, a cultural and mutualist infrastructure on the South Side of Chicago that works to raise local awareness of ecological and cultural issues through educational and artistic programs and community initiatives. Two places, two women, one ambition: to support contemporary creation and social initiatives. Cathy Bouvard and Connie Spreen share their interrogations. How can art be associated with social and environmental equity projects in different urban environments facing numerous tensions or difficulties? Can artistic creation be a tool for action in the service of territories? How does the artist meet a territory and its communities, and reciprocally ?

Chicago-based artist, Faheem Majeed, discusses his current exhibition at Hyde Park Art Center, "Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds," his interest in culturally-specific arts organizations, and his unique approach to printmaking, sculpture, installation, and community building. Majeed also discusses upcoming residency at Les Ateliers Medicis. The conversation is led by Megha Ralapati, Hyde Park Art Center's Residency Manager.

Palabre is a discussion circle on the skills and artistic practices of the margin, created by Bintou Dembélé. In this show, Bintou Dembélé welcomes Vinii Revlon, voguing dancer, Cyborg, Krump dancer, and singer Charlène Andjembe. Lively, intense and authentic exchanges to discuss urban dance, the creative process and the new narratives that these artists are calling for.

Palabre #2 with Vinii Revlon
For the second episode, Bintou Dembélé welcomes Vinii Revlon, voguing dancer, to discuss about this urban dance born in the seventies in New York LGBT clubs.

Les Indes Galantes, a film by Clément Cogitore for la 3ème scène of the Paris Opera.
In 2017, Clément Cogitore adapted a short part of the ballet from Jean-Philippe Rameau, Les Indes galantes, with the help of a group of Krump dancers, and three choreographers: Bintou Dembele, Igor Caruge and Brahim Rachiki. Krump is a dance born in the Los Angeles ghettos  in the 90s. It was born as a result of the riots and the brutal police repression that followed the beating of Rodney King. A performative film that manages to mix the baroque and the contemporary, the classical and the hip-hop, the codified and the impromptu, and to make resonate with the present a part of history that has long been hidden.

Steve is 25 years old. Until recently, he was still one of the "scum" of the Parisian suburbs. But Steve suddenly decided to change his life, by training as an actor at the Cours Simon, one of the most prestigious theater schools in France. Since then, he takes the RER B train every day to reach Paris and the golden world of highborn children. Much more than a social journey, it's a journey of initiation that he begins, trying to turn his dream of acting into a reconstruction project. This documentary film follows Steve at this turning point in his life and attempts to tell the story of his difficult metamorphosis. Its director, Alice Diop, is an associate artist at the Ateliers Médicis and will be joining the United States for the Villa Albertine Chicago. She won the Encounters Jury Prize and the Best Documentary Award at the 2020 Berlinale for her film Nous.

Tonika Lewis Johnson’s Folded Map™ Project visually investigates what urban segregation looks today like while connecting residents who live at corresponding addresses in Chicago's racially and economically segregated North and South Sides to have a conversation about how segregation personally impacts them. What started as a photographic study quickly evolved into a multimedia exploration with video interviews. The project invites audiences to open a dialogue and question how we are all impacted by social, racial, and institutional conditions that segregate the city. Her goal? For individuals to understand how our urban environment is structured. She wants to challenge everyone to think about how change may be possible and to contribute to a solution. With clear, concise and engaging animations and visuals, watch and listen to activist and artist Tonika Lewis Johnson describe this powerful project in depth as well as it's inspiration and origins.

Guillaume Désanges, Xavier Wrona, le peuple qui manque - Aliocha Imhoff & Kantuta Quiros, Nicolas Détrie and Dorothée Munyanesa, Neil Beloufa
Since 2015, French artists have been invited to spend several months in residence in Chicago to immerse themselves in the city's context and hatch projects in connection with the local ecosystem.

Created by curator Guillaume Désanges and supported by the cultural services of the French Embassy in Chicago, the Méthode Room is a residency program that has invited French creators to stay and work for three months on the South Side since 2015, immersing themselves in the local civic and cultural engagement. The goal is to create an innovative residency and production platform deeply rooted in Chicago's rich and vibrant cultural ecosystem. After an introduction of the Méthode Room by Guillaume Désanges, Xavier Wrona, architect (resident 2015), le peuple qui manque, curatorial platform mixing contemporary art and research (resident 2016), Dorothée Munyaneza and Nicolas Détrie (residents 2019) give us a testimony of their immersion in the Chicago context. This is also an opportunity for Neil Beloufa, the latest guest of the Méthode Room in 2020, to tell us how, in response to the impossibility of traveling, he transformed this residency into a film project developed remotely and in progress, a reality-fiction with actors from Chicago.

Les impatients, le peuple qui manque - Aliocha Imhoff & Kantuta Quiros
le peuple qui manque is a curatorial platform based in Paris and founded in 2005, which works at the intersection between contemporary art and research. It also produces and distributes artists' films, and has initiated several exhibitions, international meetings and festivals. We are broadcasting here the first episode of "The Impatients", a film-essay that takes the form of a "chronopolitical" series, about the imaginary of time and our desire to recover the possibility of the future. The Impatients are those who work towards a movement of reconstruction of futures, those who carry within them this impatience towards a History that seems to be now immobile, frozen.

Dorothée Munyaneza and Nicolas Détrie – Chicago, Fall 2019 
Dorothée Munyaneza, choreographer, and Nicolas Détrie, founder of the Yes We Camp collective, spent three months in Chicago, on the South Side. This double residency of research and creation at the intersection of artistic and social practices was conceived as a time of inspiration, transmission and collaboration with a multitude of local actors, neighborhood youth, artists, urban planners, researchers, and organizational leaders. They tell us how this event resonates today in their daily lives.

The Era Footwork Crew are pioneers in dance battles, internationally recognized for their performances and their commitment to issues of inequality and racism. Their co-founder, Sterling "Steelo" Lofton, is considered one of the best footwork dancers in the world. This video is a glimpse into his energy and behind the scenes work on the connection between fashion and dance. He discusses the creation of his own clothing line "Stiched by Steelo", and his brand Sterling Publishing Company (SPC), which highlights the synergy between dance and fashion shows and provides a platform to create choreography and movement based on cuts, textiles and folds.

Lional “Brother El” Freeman is a transnational sound artist and producer, and the product of Chicago hip hop. His obsession, and fame, is live appearances performing semi-composed electronic dance music, aka Live PA, in unexpected spaces, where people may heal from the energy of the place and Live PA’s sound frequencies. In the freedom of this setting, a bassline, drum-machine beats, synthesizer chords, and custom riffs from recordings, such as of James Baldwin, also convey the message for Brother El. “A Visual Story of Live PA v2m” is a marker about unfinished history.  Shot outside of the Adler Planetarium, 41 St Beach, sidewalks, and bridges of Oakwood and Bronzeville, the video collage invokes people who knew the same places and made other futures, who saw the beauty and the harm that exist in the gap between freedom and restriction: Sun Ra, Mahalia Jackson, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Ida B Wells, Fred Hampton, and many others. 

Lucas Roxo
Lucas Roxo is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker. Born in the suburbs of Paris and the grandson of Portuguese immigrants, he is passionate about urban and migratory issues. His work deals in particular with exile, North African immigration in France and mobilization against urban renewal projects. Lucas Roxo collaborates with several newspapers and radio stations (Socialter, France Info, the Huffington Post...) and leads media education workshops to transmit a new relationship to information.

Nawufal Mohamed
Nawufal Mohamed is a journalist and activist. Living and working in Clichy-sous-bois, he created his own media, La Chaise pliante, to throw light on the activists who carry the voice of the neighborhoods: to capture the words and gestures of those who make the territory, to promote urban culture and a form of concrete artistic creation, rooted in the territory.

Thomas Kirszbaum
Thomas Kirszbaum is a sociologist. His research focuses on urban policies for the integration of ethnic minorities, studied in particular in the context of a comparison of urban policy in France and the United States. Thomas Kirszbaum also studies urban discrimination and youth. He coordinated the book En finir avec les banlieues? Le désenchantement de la politique de la ville (2015) and published Rénovation urbaine. Les leçons américaines (2009).

Edward G. Goetz
Edward G. Goetz specializes in housing and local community development planning and policy. His research focuses on issues of race and poverty and how they affect housing planning and implementation. His most recent book, The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities (2018, Cornell University Press) examines the tension between the pursuit of integration and community development efforts that focus on building power and communities where people are. Goetz is a professor of urban and regional planning and has served on a variety of local and national advisory committees related to affordable housing and community development.

Connie Spreen
Connie Spreen is the co-founder and director of Experimental Station, a South Side cultural and mutualist infrastructure that works to raise awareness of ecological and cultural issues in the community. D. in French literature and languages from the University of Chicago, Connie Spreen oversees a number of community initiatives within her organization, including a food education program, a local market, and a bike store run by a South Side community.

Jamie Kalven
Jamie Kalven is a writer and human rights activist.  His work has appeared in a variety of publications.  In recent years, he has reported extensively on patterns of police abuse and impunity in Chicago. Since the early 1990s, he works in inner city Chicago neighborhoods and currently serves as consultant to the residents of the Henry Horner Homes. At Stateway Gardens, he created a program of “grassroots public works” aimed at creating alternatives for ex-offenders and gang members.  He also worked to develop human rights monitoring strategies; among them, an online publication called The View From The Ground. His articles became the focus of a protracted legal controversy, when he refused to comply with a subpoena from the Among the awards. Kalven has received are the 2015 Polk Award for Local Reporting, the 2016 Ridenhour Courage Prize, and the 2017 Hillman Prize for Web Journalism.

Tonika Johnson
Tonika Johnson is a photographer/social justice artist and life-long resident of Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood. She is also co-founder of two community-based organizations, Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood, that seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities and mobilize people and resources for positive change.

Josèfa Ntjam
Josèfa Ntjam is an artist, performer and writer whose practice combines sculpture, photomontage, film and sound. Gleaning the raw material of her work from the internet and books on natural sciences, Ntjam uses assemblage – of images, words, sounds, and stories – as a method to deconstruct the grand narratives underlying hegemonic discourses on origin, identity and race. Her work weaves multiple narratives drawn from investigations into historical events, scientific functions, or philosophical concepts, to which she confronts references to African mythology, ancestral rituals, religious symbolism and science-fiction.

Alexandria Eregbu
Alexandria Eregbu is a multimedia artist, writer, and educator whose practice draws from material histories, lived experiences, and her own imagination to deepen her connectivity to the natural world. Her work is driven by travel, storytelling, memories, (whether lived or dreamt) and surrealist activity across the diaspora— spanning from Nigeria, West Africa, the Caribbean, and to her native city in Chicago.  For The Other.expo, she created MMIRI: Origin Stories, a cautionary tale about what happens when we fail to recall our beginnings and allow for our creative faculties to be co-opted.

Julien Creuzet
Julien Creuzet is a visual artist, video artist, performer and poet. Through environments made up of composite ensembles, he explores different cultural heritages by organizing bridges between the imaginary of the elsewhere, the social realities of the here and the forgotten minority stories. Associating different temporalities and geographies, preferring anachronism and collusion to the simplicity of consecrated narratives, Julien Creuzet summons the registers of the living and the technological, of history and myth, of the poetic and the political to unfold the disparate stories of hybrid creatures and marshy areas reinvested and thwarted by the desires of power and expansion of imperious civilizations. Born in 1986 in Blanc-Mesnil, Julien Creuzet lives and works in Fontenay-sous-Bois. He has had several solo exhibitions, including recently at the VR Arles Festival as part of an exhibition outside the walls of the Palais de Tokyo on the occasion of the Rencontres d'Arles (2018), at the Fondation d'Entreprise Ricard and Bétonsalon - center d'art et de recherche (Paris, 2018), at the NaMiMa gallery of the École nationale supérieure d'art et de design de Nancy (2016) and at the Frac Basse-Normandie (Caen, 2015). His work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions: "Aujourd'hui aura lieu", exhibition hors-les-murs at the Palais de Tokyo as part of the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018), "A Cris Ouverts", 6th edition of the Ateliers de Rennes, biennale of contemporary art (2018), at the Rencontres de Bamako, 11th African Biennial of Photography (2017), at the 14th Biennial of Lyon (2017), at the Frac Pays de la Loire (Carquefou, 2016) or at La Galerie, contemporary art center (Noisy-le-Sec, 2015). His work is represented by the Document Gallery in Chicago. Julien Creuzet is nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize 2021.

Faheem Majeed
Faheem Majeed is an artist, educator, curator and community facilitator. He draws on these multiple roles to create works and exhibitions that focus on institutional critique, and uses collaboration to create meaningful dialogue between an immediate community and a larger sphere. Faheem Majeed has received several awards. He is an assistant professor of art at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bintou Dembélé
Bintou Dembélé est l’une des artistes majeures du mouvement Hip-Hop en France. Elle collabore avec des artistes comme Denis Darzacq, Mohamed Bourouissa et Yolande Zauberman. En 2002, elle crée Rualité - d’après les mots rue et réalité - structure au sein de laquelle elle crée L’Assise (2004), LOL (2008), Mon appart’ en dit long (2010), Z.H. (2014), S/T/R/A/T/E/S – Quartet (2016), Le Syndrome de l’initié.e (2018). En 2017, Clément Cogitore fait appel à elle pour chorégraphier Les Indes galantes à l’Opéra national de Paris. En 2020, l’Opéra national de Lyon l’invite à créer un solo pour la danseuse du ballet Merel van Heeswijk. Depuis 2019, elle est artiste associée aux Ateliers Médicis (Clichy-sous-Bois/Montfermeil). En 2021, elle est en résidence à la Villa Médicis (Rome) puis à la Villa Albertine (Chicago). Elle fait partie des 10 artistes internationaux invité.e.s dans le cadre des 10 ans du Centre Pompidou-Metz, pour lequel elle a conçu le film dansé -s/t/r/a/t/e/s-.

Clément Cogitore
After studying at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg and at the Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Clément Cogitore developed a practice halfway between contemporary art and cinema. Mixing films, videos, installations and photographs, his work questions the modalities of cohabitation of humans with their images. It is most often a matter of rituals, collective memory, figuration of the sacred and a certain idea of the permeability of worlds. His work is exhibited and screened in numerous museums and art centers such as the Palais de Tokyo and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Kunsthaus in Basel, MoMA in New York. In 2015, his first feature film, Ni le ciel ni la terre was selected for the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival and received the Gan Foundation Prize, as well as the Prize for the best first film from the French Union of Film Critics and was nominated for the César for best first film. His documentary Braguino, released in theaters in 2017, was awarded numerous prizes in festivals (including the Zabaltegi-Tabalakera Prize at the San Sebastian Festival).

Alice Diop
Alice Diop, born 1979 in Aulnay-sous-Bois, France is a director of Senegalese descent with a Masters in history and a Doctorate in visual sociology. She studied documentary filmmaking at La Femis in Paris and has written and directed several documentaries. Shot in 2015, Towards Tenderness had its World Premiere at Creteil Women International Film Festival and its US Premiere at the New York African Film Festival. It won Best Short Film at the French César Awards in 2017. In 2021, Alice Diop received the Best Film Award in the Encounters section and the Best Documentary Award at the Berlinale Biennal.

Guillaume Désanges
Guillaume Désanges is an independent curator and art critic. He is the founder and director of Work Method, a Paris based agency for artistic projects. He organizes international exhibitions projects and lectures. Since 2013, he is running the curatorial program of La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès in Bruxels. He currently teaches at the School of Fine Arts of Lyon. In 2015 he created with the cultural services of the French Embassy a residency program called La Methode Room. Each year, a French or Francophone artist is invited to stay in the South side for three months, each time in collaboration with different partners and institutions depending on the resident’s profile and project. The aim is to create an innovative platform for residency and production, deeply rooted in the richness and dynamism of the cultural ecosystem of the South Side, and more globally of Chicago.

Xavier Wrona
A practicing architect and associate professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Saint-Etienne, Xavier Wrona has long been interested in the connection between architecture and social justice. In Chicago, he wanted to move away from a cold, theoretical architecture and return to a practice that was closer to reality, capable of generating engagement, discussion and debate. To this purpose, he built a temporary television studio. He also created a new journal and an exhibition that explores French intellectual Georges Bataille's definition of architecture as a tool by which an ideologically dominant order manifests itself in space and time.

Dorothée Munyaneza
Dorothée Munyaneza left Kigali with her family at the age of 12 in 1994 and moved to the UK where she studied music and social sciences before moving to France. She wrote and performed the soundtrack for Terry George’s film Hotel Rwanda, and in 2010, she released her first solo album, recorded with the producer Martin Russell. She establishes a dialogue between music and other means of expression, mixing dance, poetry and experimental music. She has worked on in situ performances at the Pompidou Centre and at the Mucem, and created original choreographic pieces.Dorothée Munyaneza has worked on the international dance scene and founded her own company, Kadidi which then toured extensively with some 100 performances in France and abroad. With Mailles, a seven-voice symphony created in 2020, she returns with a choral show about African or Afro-descendant women artists.

Nicolas Détrie
Nicolas Détrie is a graduate of ESSEC. Specialized in urban economics, he has been actively involved in student organizations supporting disadvantaged youth. Director of the "Ateliers de Cergy", he has developed collaborative creativity workshops to define urban strategies with city stakeholders. In 2013, Nicolas launched Yes We Camp, the first social, ecological and artistic temporary camping in Marseille, which attracted thousands of participants from all over Europe and received the "French Impact" label.

Le peuple qui manque
A people is missing is an art curatorial platform based in Paris, France. It was created by Kantuta Quiros and Aliocha Imhoff in 2005, and operates at the intersection of contemporary art and research. A people is missing is also producing and distributing artists’ films and is the initiator of several exhibitions, international encounters and festivals. Kantuta Quirós and Alyosha Imhoff are teachers and hold various institutional positions.

Vinii Revlon
"Vinii from Paris" moves to dust off society and deconstruct our visions. The first vogguing dancer to obtain the title of Legend in Europe, the artist fights to throw light on the history, the codes and the past of a movement that stands against racism, discrimination and sexism. In 2019, he takes the stage at the Bastille Opera House for Les Indes Galantes and engages in numerous collaborations.

Cyborg
French artist of Haitian origin, Cyborg likes to "explore things and venture where others have not set foot". He practices hip-hop, participates in battles and wins international competitions, and took part in the film "Climax" by Gaspard Noé and the short film Buck by Anne Cissé. He is part of the dancers of the video Les Indes galantes 3e scène and the opera-ballet created in 2019 at the Opéra Bastille.

Délie Charlène Andjembe
Born in Gabon, Délie Charlène Andjembe is a singer and musician who plays guitar and vocal jazz. Within the Cie Rualité of choreographer Bintou Dembelé, Délie Charlène develops the looper technique, which allows her to unfold plural vocal ambiances. She works on harmonies in which the voice becomes a dome conducive to introspection, a melody sung in the manner of pygmy polyphonies, or a West African healing voice. Charlène Andjembe also teaches musical workshops for children and teenagers.

Brother El
Brother El is a 2021 Resident Artist at High Concept Labs. He has worked extensively in electronic music creation, performance technology, composition, production, audio engineering, photography and graphic design for more than twenty years. He is founder of The Beat Bank, the independent record label, and is preeminent in Live PA.
Brother El’s original Live PA deploys sequencers, synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers to create fully improvised and live beat-making. In addition, he is a member of three music groups. He is recipient of the 2021 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program Award, and the 2020 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. Brother El is a teaching artist at Walter H Dyett High School for the Arts, where he has created a multiple-subject curriculum for youth to learn electronic music, science, and wellness.

Sterling Lofton aka Steelo
Steelo is a 2021 Resident Artist at High Concept Labs and a 2020 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. He came to prominence as a footwork battle dancer in the legendary clique Terra Squad. In 2014, he co-founded The Era Footwork Crew, which has toured internationally and performed festivals such as Pitchfork and Lollapalooza. He was recognized choreographer of the year (New City Magazine) and cultural organizer of the year (FADER Magazine) alongside The Era, and designs their merchandise and visual art. “Footworker’s boots,” a pair of Timberland boots he customized, was featured in The Era’s gallery show at Hokin Project.  He started his own fashion line, Stiched by Steelo. He created “footwork saves lives”, a campaign raising awareness to footwork as a positive outlet for youth, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from South Shore High School for his community service.