A Shared Birthday Zone

“A Shared Birthday Zone”
Place des Capucins, Bordeaux.
From 9 till 28 September 2014 Bordeaux

Within the framework of Bordeaux [Re]Centres, 2013/2016 and AGORA, Bordeaux Biennial of Architecture, Town planning and Design.
A joint work, drawn from tales and topics collected amongst city dwellers about the construction of a world to come.

“A Shared Birthday Zone” is a poetical installation based on the idea of a construction site and equipped for organizing the gathering of thoughts, tributes and poetical considerations, using sound recordings, camera shots, writing… The set up is that with its bungalows, caravans and work surfaces converted into a meeting place. It is so made that the visitors are invited into the very heart of a process of transformation. A transformation in which the public itself supplies the material. Through the use of these specific sites which are usually reserved for the building trade at work, the artists on the project generates the possibility of collaborative ideas, and encourage the visitors to reveal their “stories of the world”, those yet to happen.

These stories are in a certain way materialized in the “Fitting Room of Voices and Wishes” a sound studio where the visitors are recorded live and leave with a CD of their contribution. Or in the “Studio of the Human Lumen” a computer graphics studio, where one can pose for the camera and be transformed into a human candle. Thereafter on a blank placard that was held during the pose the person can write a message of encouragement to the world. The image is then printed on a postcard and given to the participant and another one is hung the wall surrounding the studio. The contributions are seen and the recordings heard on the premises, and are matter for transformation by painters who “transfigure” a choice of these city stories. They are then added to the “Wall of the World to Come” where they can be appreciated or again modified by the authors. In the “Feasibilities Room” one can suggest and/or assemble ideas around the possibilities to invent, transform or enhance ones urban surroundings (the bench in front of ones home, the crossroad at the town entrance, the colours of city buses, etc.).

These “workshops” are open to all publics and the visitors are lead in a whimsical manner by performers from one place to another. Strollers can also visit the Souvenir Shop of the Future or the Snackiversary where the tenants imaginatively share lines of thought with the public, inspired by the phrase «Happy Birthday Everybody !» while using as a starting point “hand made souvenir objects” or «family made appetizers» created on location.  Painters, sound engineers, performers, computer graphics artists, photographers establish a contact full of light-heartedness and enthusiasm, making the visitors feel at home and willing to contribute with generosity.

Associated to the Agency of Architecture Philippe Prost and to the landscapers Friche and Cheap, the art group Les Pas Perdus is invited by the City of Bordeaux for three years of artistic interventions in the public space. Artists Guy-André Lagesse, Nicolas Barthélemy and Jérôme Rigaut bring together the relation artists/inhabitants with the artistic realisations to emerge at the heart of the urban project in the old downtown Bordeaux. They suggest to the users of the city to address their concern of the everyday life as poetical potential, to find a link between singularity/eccenticity and the ordinary of everyday life and to live in the world through aesthetic practices.

Les Pas Perdus cooking for the eyes with leftovers of the world.
Les Pas Perdus propose installations and visual artworks interlock with a creative journey through the fourniture > the house > the district > the city, mixed with popular aesthetic practices. Always happy to re-use leftovers, Guy-AndreLagesse, Nicolas Barthélemy and Jérôme Rigaut have established over time a strong and dynamic relationship with « inventors of the everyday life ». The Apartment Tunning, the Furnished Circuits, The Pathway in the Garden of Home-made Wishes, The Mastoc – windswept building offer the possibility to work with the audacity and ardour spirit of its habitants/enthusiast handyman, poets … who become for the occasion ” Occasionals of art “.

Participating artists of Bordeaux: Marine Beloir • Claude Caillol • Sébastien Gazeau • Pauline Lespiau • Johann Mazé • Olivier Roustaing •