What kind of world do we dream of when we grow up? How can we dream it together? How do we write it down? The “Copier-Coller“ project invites schoolchildren from the Thomas Mann school (Paris) to take hold of the immediate and familiar world, the better to get rid of it, by cutting it up, tearing it apart and putting certain pieces back together again. By introducing the students to the notions of originality, cut-up and pseudonym in literature, and the sample technique in music, the artist invites them to reconsider the way they perceive themselves and others, and themselves in relation to others. Imagining that each of us is made up of a sum of influences all our own, the project invites us to draw inspiration from figures near and far, to assert our own specificity, while at the same time putting our differences into perspective. Carrying a plural and composite voice, the young people will develop – through writing workshops followed by sound and vocal experimentation – a universe populated by dreamed-up versions of themselves, where everything has to be collectively reinvented.  By defining the parameters of this ecosystem so that their alter-egos can flourish, they will project a reality determined by their desires, and not the other way around. For this project, artist Manon Michèle invites musician and producer Emilien Point Afana to contribute to the making of this textual and sonic world.

“Tu vois je veux dire” is an Artistic and Cultural Education project run by Bétonsalon – Center for Art and Research (Paris, 13th), Ivry’s Contemporary Art Centre – Le Crédac (Ivry-sur-Seine, 94) and La Briqueterie – National Choreographic Development Center of Val-de-Marne (Vitry-sur-Seine, 94), in collaboration with the Adolphe Chérioux highschool in Vitry-sur-Seine, Marianne High School in Villeneuve-le-Roi, and Armand Guillaumin High School in Orly. Initiated in 2023-2024, the “Tu vois je veux dire” project takes as its starting point Bétonsalon’s Young Mediators Program and allows high school students to experiment with different forms of mediation around artistic practices from both visual and performing arts. Continuing in 2024-2025, this project seeks—through observation, listening, encounters with artists and art professionals, dialogue, and artistic practice—to challenge the traditional roles and voices associated with discourse on artworks within cultural and artistic institutions. It does so by imagining and inventing original public engagement formats: podcasts, dance-based tours, design publication, and more. In 2024–2025, students from six classes across three high schools in Val-de-Marne had the opportunity to share and explore new ways of creating and presenting mediation around the performances they selected from the program of the Val-de-Marne Dance Biennale, organized by La Briqueterie: • At Adolphe Chérioux High School, the 10th-grade class in the Applied Arts program worked with artist Fanette Lambey on the show Coup Fatal by Alain Platel, focusing on the vocabulary and gestures of “la sape” (a Congolese fashion movement), combined with baroque music, both of which are featured in the performance. The students then created a T-shirt using heat transfer printing to offer a “sape”-styled mediation of the show to another class at the school. • At Marianne High School, a general 10th-grade class worked on the performance Afrikan Party from the Biennale with artist Wendy Osu to produce a patchwork flag, made up of individually designed flags, and used it to offer an original form of mediation to another class. • At Armand Guillaumin High School, an 11th-grade vocational class participated in dance workshops with Clémence Galliard and Soa Ratsifandrihana, in connection with the Biennale performance Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna, and produced a podcast that is available online.

For the residency The Thick Present, Phœbe Hadjimarkos Clarke will undertake a writing project on fires, by weaving various narrative, poetic, political, and theoretical threads – superimposing, opposing, and intertwining them. The starting point for this exploration is the author’s grandmother, Clara, a fire lookout in the American West during the 1940s and 1950s. Stationed for several months alone on a mountain peak, she had to monitor the surrounding forest and alert the fire department if a fire started. At the time, the fire prevention measures stated that all fires had to be extinguished by 10 am the next day. Photographs, memories, and textual fragments have survived from this period of Clara’s life, along with a highly literary but very male imaginary: Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder, for instance, both worked as fire lookouts and wrote about their time in the service. Clara’s rejection of conformist and gender norms questions our (gendered) relationship to nature, to fire (from wildfires to domestic hearths), and to their intersection (must all fires be eradicated or must we learn to live with them?). Firewatches and the “zero fire” policy they operated under during the 20th century, although they might seem romantic, in fact allowed organic waste to accumulate, disrupting the area’s ecosystem, and thus strongly contributing to the current situation in the American West, where fire seasons are now year-long, and megafires, which are both a consequence and a cause of global heating, destroy millions of acres, causing long-term air and water pollution. The Ponderosa and Douglas fir forests in the area in fact evolved alongside low-intensity natural fires, as well as controlled fires lit by Native Americans, which regularly cleansed the forests, helping them thrive and avoiding overly fierce fires.¹ When they are old enough, Ponderosa and Douglas firs can in fact survive the fire that clears the undergrowth. Therefore, colonial attitudes and the “zero fire” policy they entailed radically disrupted both the ecosystem and a special relationship to the forest characterised by a caring attitude towards living organisms², a disruption that reaches far into the present. The ambivalent nature of this history, and, more broadly, of fire, will inspire the writing of a novel depicting a series of investigations, whose tentacles will intertwine through pitch-thick time: · An (auto)biographical investigation: an attempt to reconstruct Clara’s experience as a lookout in relation with the rest of her life, including a period of field investigation in Oregon; · A scientific investigation: an overview of the current research, in order to understand the dynamics, causes, and consequences of forest fires today, leading to discussions with researchers from the Centre des politiques de la terre. How can we live with fire, an element ubiquitous in our imaginations yet absent from our daily lives, which are paradoxically sustained by fossil fires from deep time, quietly consuming the planet’s resources and liveability? · A fictional investigation: a final section of the novel recounts the discovery of a secret pyromaniac community, which experiences fire in a utopian, joyful, and radical way – a fire at the heart of life. By layering facts, times, and fiction, this project seeks to reveal the knottiness of our age – the Pyrocene.³

The Magnetic Residencies artistic committee met on September 24, 2024, and selected artist Racheal Crowther for a residency at Bétonsalon as part of the 3rd edition of this program. Racheal Crowther will be in residence at Bétonsalon for 3 months, from April to July 2025. She will receive a grant of €2,500 per month, a studio-apartment at the Cité internationale des Arts, a curatorial support from the Bétonsalon team, as well as networking opportunities with art professionals to develop her research. The residency project Racheal Crowther is interested in the biopolitics that govern the public and private spaces we inhabit, and that constitute their physical and psychological boundaries. She explores the social constructions that underlie the material functions of these spaces, drawing on the social, commercial and institutional environments in which she herself has evolved. In her essay The Eternal Pursuit of the Unattainable (Montez Press, 2024), Racheal Crowther looks at the different uses and representations of perfume, from poison to counterfeit, and its power to influence consumer psychology. She demonstrates how the marketing of perfumes exploits the human yearning for something beyond the ordinary, and explores the issues linked to the socio-economic level that determines access to them, the expression of the gender identities that underpin them, and the history of the acquisition of olfactory materials. During her residency at Bétonsalon, she hopes to deepen her research into olfactory materials by studying the way in which odours are used to influence mood and behaviour, based on studies at the ISIPCA (Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, de la Cosmétique et de l’Aromatique alimentaire) and the olfactory archives of the Osmothèque de Versailles, the largest conservatory of perfumes in the world.

Bétonsalon is part of the Magnetic Residencies program, run by Fluxus Art Projects, built around tandem partnerships between institutions and residencies based in a French region (CAPC in Bordeaux, Frac Grand Large in Dunkerque, Frac Bretagne in Rennes and Villa Arson in Nice) and a British nation (Wysing Arts Centre, Cove Park, Aberystwyth Arts Center, Flax Art Studios). Artists from each of the five French regions are invited to apply for the residency based in an associated British nation; artists from each British nation can apply for the residency based in the associated French region. For the 4th edition of Magnetic, Gasworks (London) and Bétonsalon offer two 2-month residencies for two artists, one based in Ile-de-France region and the other in England. Bétonsalon welcomes applications which engage with practices rooted in an exploration of sensorial relationships to the world and offering collective tools to reassess the way our body and mind are affected by and respond to the multiple crisis we are currently facing. We support artistic research which aims to broaden our understanding of physical and emotional interrelations between human and non-human – through performance, immersive installation, film, sound, care practices, radical pedagogies, participatory experiments etc. – and to question the way social and institutional frameworks shape experiences with our environment. The residency offers: – Artist fees of 2500 €/month – A private furnished studio-apartment at the Cité internationale des Arts – A round-trip to and from Paris (local transports are also covered) – Administrative support and curatorial mentoring for the development of the research – Network opportunities (studio visits, meetings, exhibition visits) with art professionals, curators, artists, institutions, art centres and galleries in Paris Duration of the residency This 2-month residency will run from April to May 2026, followed by a one-month extension in June as part of the Institut Français x Cité internationale des Arts residency program. Application process – The Magnetic 4 call for applications will be open from 20 May to 14 July 2025 (midnight) on Fluxus Art Projects website. – Applications are not open to students, except for PhD candidates – Artists in both France and the UK are considered to be based in a region if they have an address (residence) within that region/nation – All applications must be written in English – Joint applications (duo, collective, etc) are not accepted Selection criteria This call is aimed at professional artists working in the field of visual arts who have already presented their work in several professional venues identified by contemporary art networks. Applications will be assessed by a selection committee on the basis on the artistic ambition within a professional practice rooted in contemporary visual arts, the relevance of the artist’s proposal within the residency’s context and focus and the motivation for an international residency at this point in the artist’s career. Timeline – 20 May – 14 July 2025: call for applications – First half of September 2025: selection committees with online interviews of preselected artists -17th October 2025: public announcement of Magnetic 4 laureates – April – June 2026: residency at Bétonsalon Accessibility As part of its commitment to accessibility for all, the Bétonsalon team is working to continuously improve the visitor experience and the support the artists with whom we collaborate. We are developing programs, tools and activities designed to provide inclusive support adapted to the needs of everyone. Access to the art centre without any structural restrictions and the ability to move around the various areas open to the public without any obstacles or hindrances are key requirements for full accessibility. Some office spaces, however, are only accessible by stairs. Some studio-apartments in the Cité internationale des Arts are accessible to people with reduced mobility via an elavator. However, this is not the case for all communal areas of the premises. Studios can accommodate up to two adults and one child under the age of 7. Any specific need linked to a personal situation (disability, medical condition, family, etc) should be indicated prior to the residency so that appropriate support can be provided. Further information on the Magnetic Residences program is available on the Fluxus Art Projects website.

  As part of the exhibition “The Untamable Hand” by Hedwig Houben, the artists in this programme have been invited to present a series of performances, readings and artistic practice workshops from which to probe the ambiguous territories of embarrassment, disgust and the body’s unexpectedness. Exploring the forms and resistances of the body in the face of aesthetic and social norms, this programme aims to explore the critical and liberating power of letting go. Programme: • 4pm to 5pm “From hysteria as symptom language to feminist poetics: arts, bodies, writing.” Lecture by Sofia Batko. • 5pm to 6pm Discussion with Hedwig Houben, Émilie Renard and Vincent Enjalbert on the exhibition “The Untamable Hand”. • 7pm to 10pm “Borborygmi” evening Readings, performances and DJ set With Nicole*, Lisa Lecuivre, Estelle Benazet Heugenhauser, Helena de Laurens, Star Finch and cl✰ra. We call “borborygmi” the sounds that, rising from our intestines, give voice to the liquids and gases of the food our bodies are trying—more or less laboriously—to process, transform and digest. We can agree, even though we’re not all equal when it comes to food, that a purée won’t sound quite the same as a raw bell pepper during digestion… Burrrp, beuuuurp, beuuuurglll are just some of the onomatopoeias that evoke the noisy churn of matter transmuting deep within the recesses of our guts. A machinery of flesh made up of acids and all sorts of fluids, these noises remind our minds—so quick to deny—that a functional body is one that produces plenty of miasmas and gurgles. The mystery of alchemy is long gone; the mechanics of a stool-to-be make themselves audibly known. The louder, longer, and more rolling the sound, the greater the embarrassment—and with it, the revulsion at the idea of letting others hear the workings of one’s inner self. Projecting its textured orality into the outside world, the body speaks and writes itself, offering up the rankness of its own language. Thus, much against our will, the sounds spill out and overflow, while brows furrow, nostrils flare, and upper lips curl in distaste. In her performance Borborygmus¹, Hedwig Houben speaks of borborygmi as a manifestation of the IT within her: “IT, she explains, standing before a table strewn with clay-colored, intestine-like forms, is this multiple, undefined, and evolving thing. (…) It’s as if something managed to get inside (my) body. But how? And who? And what?”² Beyond mere anecdote or aside, the borborygmus—or any other phonetic bodily discharge—evokes the language of a body that trembles, pulses, and undulates to the rhythm of its own “now”. A body momentarily become other, which runs wild and seems to do as it pleases. Something is made manifest that, in spite of us, inserts itself into our speech, derailing it—forcing a pause, a restart, or an awkward cough. Something needs to come out, literally or figuratively, provoking shame, self-disgust (or disgust at others), a loss of control, and a sense of estrangement from oneself. What do we do with this IT? Should it be tamed, silenced, allowed to do its thing, or given a space of its own? Speaking of another kind of release—the barf—American poet Dodie Bellamy writes: “barf is messy, irregular, but you can feel in your guts that it’s going somewhere, you can’t stop it… you’ve just got to let it runs its course.”³ And what if what disturbs us most isn’t this encounter with an autonomous interiority, but the looks from others—marked by discomfort, disgust, and judgment. Already, morality rears its head, building its foundations on a physiological reaction presented as “natural.” As limit experiences positioned on the fringes of the thinkable or the acceptable, discomfort and disgust evoke a moral dimension that disciplines, corrects, and holds bodies in place. Perhaps we need to shift our focus—to let this unruly body do its thing, in order to interrogate discomfort and disgust as powerful analytical tools for understanding the hierarchies and discriminations that their social and political uses enable. How can “letting go” become an intellectual position, a methodology with its own aesthetic and political priorities? What does it mean to insist on disorder, improvisation, and release—for what this provokes in ourselves and in others—as a means of cultural critique and political engagement? While we assume them to be spontaneous and beyond language, aren’t these bodily manifestations and the discomfort they cause shaped by our social habits? It is precisely because they dwell in—or are relegated to—the murky margins of our social behaviors, that we need to collectively examine them, that we need words to tell their stories, images to capture them, gestures to reenact them. This program seeks to deconstruct and question the behavioral and aesthetic norms that shape our imaginations. Elena Lespes Muñoz