Artists in residence

The jury of the Prix Voix d’Afriques 2021, composed of publishers, journalists, writers and booksellers and chaired by Abdourahman Wabéri, has chosen its winner: Fann Attiki for his novel Cave 72. The author, whose work will be published on September 1 by JC Lattès, will be in residence at the Cité internationale des arts, in Paris from August 27 to October 28, 2021.

Fann Attiki was born in 1992 in Pointe-Noire, Congo. In 2011, he fell in love with poetry while attending – in spite of himself – a slam workshop initiated by the Association of Styl’Oblique Congo while strolling in the lobby of the Institu français with the sole objective of cheating the boredom of an endless afternoon. He moved to Brazzaville in 2016, devotes himself to writing and theater, participates in a book club, leads slam workshops.

Cave 72

Three young friends, Verdass, Ferdinand and Didi, meet every day at the Cave 72, a bar, an ideal refuge where they forget their daily lives governed by the absurd: administrative hassles, political decisions, laws, reasons for wars, love and divorces, the apparent passivity of men in the face of dictatorship… They discuss, drink, recite poems and return home without having hurt anyone. They are innocent of everything. And for this reason, a man, secretary of the National Security Council, will make them the designated culprits of a plot against the State and the President, providential guide of the nation. They become heroes in spite of themselves, forced to defend themselves, to oppose the injustice of their conviction, the heroes of their own lives and the heroes of a people who have become accustomed to tolerating oppression and who suddenly rise up, defy the army, demand the release of the three young people and the reopening of the Cave 72, which has become the emblem of the resistance.

Initiated by JC Lattès and RFI, in partnership with the Cité internationale des arts, Voix d’Afriques is a literary prize designed to bring out young French-speaking authors from the African continent. A prize to support and highlight new African literary voices, novels reflecting the situation of a country, political, economic or social news or more intimate texts.

This contest is open to anyone over the age of 18 and under 30 who has never been published and who lives in an African country. More than 14,000 people have registered on the platform dedicated to the contest. On January 31, 2020, the closing day for entries, we received 323 manuscripts, finalized by the participants. Each novel is a unique look at Africa, a reflection on history, what education allows, what dreams people have in the face of harsh powers, closed borders, what secrets they keep preciously, what are their struggles and their weapons: poetry, humor, mutual aid, imagination.

In 2020, the first Voix d’Afriques Prize was awarded to Yaya Diomandé (Ivory Coast) for his novel Abobo Marley.

Born in Le Port in 1981, Yasmine Attoumane is a visual artist who works in several media (photography, video, performance, installation). She lives and works alongside the Rivière des galets, a field of practice that irrigates her first artistic projects and sets the stage for her research into the question of belonging to a territory and the drawing of its borders.

Through in situ experiments in unstable and fluctuating natural sites – the shoreline or the riverbed –, she attempts to appropriate a territory, setting the limits through various markings (lines, squares) or ephemeral installations. In 2012, she created the mural installation of photographic portraits La Rivière des galets à ciel ouvert   (The Rivière des galets in the open air), the result of numerous encounters and the reestablishment of links with the inhabitants of her village after a period of absence.

Yasmine Attoumane studied in mainland France before returning to complete her study in the Reunion Island where she obtained her DNSEP in 2017. Since 2018, she has focused her work on the observation of the landscape in some areas of the Indian Ocean such as Madagascar or Mayotte. She also develops projects on the notion of empathy around immigration.

What strikes you when you are here, on the island of Reunion, are its natural landscapes: volcanoes, mountains, cirques, rivers, gullies, coasts that are intensively and perpetually eroded. These changes of the earth or these renewals of the landscape are seductive. They naturally led me to engage my research on the theme of territory. The term touches on several domains (the geographical territory and by resonance introduces other notions: the border, the interior/exterior, the passage…).

These landscapes touched me and marked my first plastic productions. The management of territories is a preoccupation of mine on a domestic scale as well as on a global scale.

Through my plastic productions, I carry out experiments in situ on living and moving spaces such as the shoreline or the riverbed. I try to appropriate a territory by using various techniques (photography, installation, video, performance, ceramics…) and plastic operations such as the delimitation by the line, the grid, the architectural installation to propose a new representation of it.

My approach is in line with the practice of Land art and environmental art. The question of belonging to a territory, the border, the positioning and the encounter with these precarious territories have become artistic, political and social questions. The territories I have chosen are precarious, of an unstable duration. I am in the vain attempt to conquer these places.

– Yasmine Attoumane

Jessica Au is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her novel Cold Enough for Snow (2022) won the inaugural Novel Prize and was published by Giramondo, New Directions and Fitzcarraldo Editions, with translations in nineteen languages, including with Éditions Grasset in France as Pour qu’il neige. It won the Victorian Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Queensland Literary Awards, and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.

Her work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Granta, The Italian Review, TANK magazine and The Guardian, and her writing explores themes of family, migration and memory; art and femininity; narrative and aesthetics. She will spend her residency at the Cité internationale des arts doing research for her second novel, particularly on the period of Chinoiserie, Asian Art and textiles. 

Charlie Aubry joined isdaT (Institut supérieur des arts de Toulouse), where he obtained his DNAP in 2012 and his DNSEP in 2014, both with honors. 

There, he quickly developed a practice around electronics, through which he questions his everyday life. His work begins by hijacking electronic objects, which quickly become real tools for sound and visual creation. 

At the same time, he develops performative musical projects using short-circuited machines and various recordings that he accumulates to the point of total sound confusion.
From 2013 onwards, he has been a regular collaborator with Compagnie Maguy Marin. In 2014, he composed the soundtrack for BiT, followed by DEUX MILLE DIX SEPT, played live during the performance. In 2018, he signed the music and set design for Ligne de Crète. After four years in Lyon, he decided to move to Paris, to devote himself to his visual and musical practice, while continuing to collaborate occasionally with the company. His work has been exhibited at the Salon de la Jeune Création, the Salon de Montrouge, the Bourse Révélation Emerige, the Palais de Tokyo after winning the Audi Talents Awards, and recently at the Collection Lambert in Avignon. He is a resident at the Villa Medicis for 2021-2022.