MARIANNE MISPELAËRE

LANGUAGES AS MIGRATORY OBJECTS

within the framework of The New Patrons program

PATRONS
teachers of literature and languages, students, language scientist

ARTS OUTREACH – PRODUCTION
thankyouforcoming, member of the "Société Nouveaux commanditaires Arts & Sciences"

THE ART WORKS CAN BE SHARED WITH YOU, ACTIVATED AND INTERPRETED. Please contact Thankyouforcoming, the patrons or the artist.

PROJECT DEFINITION PHASE
constitution of the patrons' group, writing of the commission, choice of the artist with the mediator June 2019 - February 2020

RESEARCH PHASE
experimental workshops and conversations, realizations of art works March 2020 - March 2021

REALIZATION PHASE
realization of the protocol art piece in response to the commission, realization of the film September 2021 - April 2022

SITE
Marseilles – Bouches-du-Rhône
collège Vieux Port, lycée Victor Hugo, lycée professionnel René Caillié

SUPPORTS AND PARTNERS
A project supported by the Fondation de France, the Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso, the Fondation des Artistes, in partnership with the FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and the Académie d’Aix-Marseilles.
With the support of the Academician Mrs. Barbara Cassin and the Academic Inspector Mrs. Odile Aubert.

Les “Nouveaux commanditaires” (The New Patrons) is a project delivering since the 1990s. People wrestling with issues of society and land development are given the chance to share their concerns with contemporary artists by commissioning works. The originality of the scheme lies in the intersection of three groups of participants who are supported by the public and private partners: artists, ordinary people who commission works, and cultural mediators approved by the Fondation de France.Read more.

From 2020 to 2022, the project "Languages as migratory objects" have been entrusted to Marianne Mispelaëre within the framework of the New Patrons program. The commission led her to develop several works in close collaboration with students at the collège Vieux Port, the lycée René Caillié and the lycée Victor Hugo in Marseilles.

Together, many discussions and debates led to question about exile and transmission, history, creolization, interpretation and the concept of identity. The children inspired and guided side by side Marianne Mispelaëre in her research. Although most of them were born in France, many are multilingual. Others, allophones, appropriate the French language.
The artist based her work on a set of questions: what does it mean to speak several languages? How does (do) our language(s) construct us? And conversely, how, by performing it (them), do we in turn shape it(them)? How does language combine the intimate and the collective, does it make us live together while developing each person’s own way of seeing and understanding the world? What do languages say about us that we do not say? The notions of fluidity, metaphor and metamorphosis have fueled this collective process.

Several pieces were produced in echo to the richness and complexities of the commission's context. As an answer to the commission, the protocol work "To write within your language" (Écrire dedans sa langue) have been developed. It have to be activated in class to exist. Have also been created: the film "An eye on your tongue" (Un œil sur ta langue), the typography "The Marseillaise" (La Marseillaise), the multiple of T-shirts (protocol) "How do you see the world through your language?" (Comment vois-tu le monde à travers ta langue ?), the series of drawings (protocol) "Being a translated being" (Être un être traduit), the series of videos " If my language were an object, it would be a table" (Si ma langue était un objet, ce serait une table).