Artists in residence

INTERVIEW

Graduating from ESAD Reims in 2021, what role did your residency at the Cité internationale des arts play when you left the school?

“My residency at the Cité internationale des arts played an important role in my first year of school on several levels. I was able to meet a network of national and international artists, with whom I had the chance to exchange and collaborate during my residency period, and potentially in the future. The plurality of nationalities and practices of the artists in residency constitutes an enriching context that is very conducive to creation.

Being from Paris, I was also able to reconnect with my Parisian social life and to feed my professional network as a young artist. The availability of a studio apartment allowed me to receive studio visits and to share my work with art workers. The geographical location of the Cité dans la ville, in the center of many cultural institutions, allowed me to feed my research and to boost my production outside the school, in a context favorable to the development of my project.”

What projects did you work on during your residency?

“The project I developed during my residency is the second part of a video work I started in Mexico 3 years ago. It consists of interviews with residents, mixing hybrid narratives between documentary and fiction. The rest of the production will be the subject of a second residency, in Paris or elsewhere.

On the other hand, I had the opportunity to show a work of silver photographic series during my open studio, simultaneously with a projection of the video I had made in Mexico. During this event, and because of its uncomplicated format, the exchanges and feedback from the many visitors were very nourishing and encouraging for the continuation of my work.

Being in Paris, I was able to assist my friend, the artist Carla Adra, also former resident of the Cité internationale des arts, in the production of her exhibition Paroles chaudes at the Galerie de Noisy-Le-Sec. It was an enriching experience for the development of my project as well as for its inscription in my career.”

What are your future projects?

“In September 2022, I will enter a residency at Design’R, in the Pépinière d’art et de design de Reims. I will develop a work of painting, in studio as well as in intervention in the urban space of the city of Reims.

I will live there in cohabitation with other young artists, former students of the ESAD of Reims, who like me decided to develop their beginning of activity in Reims. During this year, I will also work with children as an artist in schools, which will feed my research in image and narrative and open my approach to other points of view.

On the other hand, I would like to continue to develop projects in residence abroad, to meet and continue to exchange with international networks of artists.”

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Paris in 1995, Eva Djen lives and works in Reims. She obtained her DNA Option Art in 2018 at the ESAD of Reims, then spent a year working in Mexico and France with the artist-run space Biquini Wax. In 2021, she received the Congratulations of the jury for her DNSEP at the ESAD in Reims.

Between 2017 and 2022, she is a member of the collective Jactatus, founded in Reims then based in Paris. In 2022, after a four-month residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, she became a resident of Design’R, the Art and Design Incubator of Reims. There she developed artistic projects in the urban space as part of the city’s bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2028.

Eva Djen’s work explores the zone of ambiguity of a world where fiction and reality merge. Through a plural practice of the image, she studies the modes of construction of narratives, the dynamics of power that emerge from them, and the different languages that can emerge from them. To deal with the ambivalence of reality, the artist uses hybrid devices that distort perception and representation.

Based on an ideology of the body and concepts related to nature and the human being, Agathe Djokam Tamo is inspired by social realities but especially by her constantly evolving universe. She is also inspired by her daily life as a woman in society, in a loving relationship, devoted to dance and sports, using her daily repetitive gestures to shape her choreographies.

Between her Djibi-Badjep working technique (back and forth) and her improvisation phases – which allow her to dig deep within herself and be true to her audience – the dancer takes an introspective look at her work. 

Through the use of hip-hop cpmme technique or some codes of traditional dance, she puts a particular emphasis on children, the approach of the other and of oneself according to a precise subject and in a concise environment that she qualifies as “breath matter” in her choreographic process.

With a work nourished by curiosity, research and questioning, she wishes to transgress the norms of the contemporary milieu and move towards freer, crazier, more daring creations.