Feral Ballads

Created by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation and the Cité internationale des arts, IN SITU is an original multidisciplinary residency programme that was above all designed as an inclusive space open to debate, the exchange of ideas and other forms of knowledge transmission. The ecological transition was at the heart of our research, to which the exhibition and publications we are sharing with you bear witness. They bring together a series of works (some produced during the residency, others before) and include photographs, sculptures, drawings, films and performances. These elements converge around a common interest in the climate crisis and the social, economic and political conflicts that arise from it.

During this six-month residency, we have sought to rethink new strategies and working methods and, to this end, we have tried to focus on the idea of building a ‘critical group’ which, as urban planner Yona Friedman would say, would be able to communicate, exchange and construct. Although ephemeral, this ‘group’ would have the capacity to support itself, to be active and attentive in order to develop, in a collective, articulated and intersectional way, a language coherent with the challenges of our time.

To conclude, I’d like to imagine that IN SITU has enabled us to build a temporary workspace, which I could compare metaphorically to the construction of a hut, like the one Marielle Macé describes in her book Nos cabanes [1]: “… without fear of calling ‘huts’ huts of phrases, paper, thought, friendship, new ways of representing space, time, action, links and practices”. A hut that would simply be a way of coming together.

María Inés Rodríguez
Curator of the IN SITU Residency Programme

[1] Marielle Macé, Nos cabanes, Lagrasse : Éditions Verdier, 2019, p. 29