Voi[e,x,s]

As part of The Aesthetic Experience project, the Evens Foundation and the research centre Theatrum Mundi establish the Voi[e,x,s] Research Fellowship to investigate how a shared aesthetic experience could enrich the relationship between people and their environnement.

At the core of Voi[e,x,s], there is a creation of a new major sound art work, a collaboration between professional musicians and a group of residents - permanent and transient - of the Parisian La Chapelle area.

Whilst the disused railway depot known as Chapelle-Charbon begins its transformation into an urban park and housing, the opera company MDPA - Alexandra Lacroix, composer Marta Gentilucci, and Theatrum Mundi, the research center founded by Richard Sennett, propose to capture the process and to create new memories for the people living in the neighbourhood.

The artists and researchers have led sound and performance workshops with groups from local schools, community centres, as well as newcomers and migrants from the nearby refugee camp to record hundreds of names of local inhabitants. Together with the sonic materials derived from the site itself, these recordings will be made audible in the space as part of an electro-acoustic installation and live vocal performance, marking the presence of the people they represent on a new public site that until now has been silent, empty and unknown.

With its first outcome culminating in a large-scale public performance in 2020, this project is a long-term process of artistic creation but also of knowledge production. The Evens Foundation, in partnership with Theatrum Mundi, has initiated and commissioned research integrated into the project. One of the key outcomes of this collaboration is a publication designed at a broad audience of practitioners, public authorities, and citizens that offers a critical reflection on—and a speculative protocol for—performance-making as a tool for engagement in urban transformation. In other words, how performance could be a kind of urban design in itself.

Read the publication here:
Voi[e,x,s]. Une en-quête politique indisciplinée.
By Dimitri Szuter, Research Fellow, Theatrum Mundi & Evens Foundation

As part of The Aesthetic Experience project, the Evens Foundation and the research centre Theatrum Mundi establish the Voi[e,x,s] Research Fellowship to investigate how a shared aesthetic experience could enrich the relationship between people and their environnement.

At the core of Voi[e,x,s], there is a creation of a new major sound art work, a collaboration between professional musicians and a group of residents - permanent and transient - of the Parisian La Chapelle area.

Whilst the disused railway depot known as Chapelle-Charbon begins its transformation into an urban park and housing, the opera company MDPA - Alexandra Lacroix, composer Marta Gentilucci, and Theatrum Mundi, the research center founded by Richard Sennett, propose to capture the process and to create new memories for the people living in the neighbourhood.

The artists and researchers have led sound and performance workshops with groups from local schools, community centres, as well as newcomers and migrants from the nearby refugee camp to record hundreds of names of local inhabitants. Together with the sonic materials derived from the site itself, these recordings will be made audible in the space as part of an electro-acoustic installation and live vocal performance, marking the presence of the people they represent on a new public site that until now has been silent, empty and unknown.

With its first outcome culminating in a large-scale public performance in 2020, this project is a long-term process of artistic creation but also of knowledge production. The Evens Foundation, in partnership with Theatrum Mundi, has initiated and commissioned research integrated into the project. One of the key outcomes of this collaboration is a publication designed at a broad audience of practitioners, public authorities, and citizens that offers a critical reflection on—and a speculative protocol for—performance-making as a tool for engagement in urban transformation. In other words, how performance could be a kind of urban design in itself.

Read the publication here:
Voi[e,x,s]. Une en-quête politique indisciplinée.
By Dimitri Szuter, Research Fellow, Theatrum Mundi & Evens Foundation

Event | 5 October 2019

During Nuit Blanche in Paris, the public was invited to a new experimentation of Voi[e.x.s] Chapelle Charbon, exploring the urban site under construction through sound and mouvement, together with the residents, musicians and performers. 300 names resounded in the architecture of the park, transforming the space into a stage and an instrument.

Watch here the film documenting 2019 workshops which led to a public performance in October during the annual all-night arts festival of the city.

News | Voi[e,x,s] Fellowship

We are very happy to announce that researcher Dimitri Szuter is the recipient of the Voi[e,x,s] Research Fellowship, initiated by the Evens Foundation and Theatrum Mundi. Szuter is a PhD candidate in architecture at GERPHAU / Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-La Villette, and founder of P.E.R.F.O.R.M!.

The researcher has the task to embed himself in the process and undertaking an observational study in close collaboration with Theatrum Mundi. This is a unique opportunity to work on a project implying live urban change processes, artistic production, and critical reflection, collaborating with artists, citizens, and sociologists.