To the closest, together. The interplay between art, literature, and the humanities for the understanding of a territory between the city and nature

Multidisciplinary team, France

The team

  • Danielle Gille-Pamart
  • Arlette Hérat
  • Nadja Monnet
  • Lourdes Segade
  • Hendrik Sturm

The team forged itself on the basis of a shared interest for the questioning of a territory through sensitive on-the-ground methods, mobilized in the context of a scientific (anthropology, urbanism), literary or artistic (writing, photography, artistic stroll) discipline. The team's objective was to test, on the soil of Cassis, the interweaving of glances, blurring the boundaries between them - but without totally erasing them - and also sometimes between artists and inhabitants. This experimentation was carried out in order to understand how coexistence unfolds in a city defined by its close relation with nature.

The method developed during this residency was first of all a process which confronted different reading methods of a territory, reflexivity, and quests of translation and writing, and which combined the inputs of one another, as well as sought to disrupt the traditional formats of knowledge production and transmission. Starting from the pictorial representations of Cassis, renowned for its touristic harbour isolated from La Ciotat and Marseille (both marked by their industrial and harbour history), the team has got on with deciphering what was not easily perceptible at first glance in the landscape, by paying attention to details, and looking for evidence. Day by day, the team members' glance has become sharper, nutrished with literary and documentary sources, enriched by the members' sensorial and social feedbacks. These on-the-ground experiences have been carried out both collectively and individually, and have been debated on a regular basis amongst the members.

The team was in residence at the Camargo Foundation in January 2015, in partnership with LabexMed.