PILOTPROJEKT GROPIUSSTADT: LES PANDAS
Interventions installatives et performatives et photographie, 2008
Résidence d'artiste de deux semaines en collaboration avec Francis O'Shaughnessy
PILOTPROJEKT GROPIUSSTADT, Gropiusstadt (Allemagne)
Extraits de la publication: PILOTPROJEKT GROPIUSSTADT : JAHRBUCH 2008
Elias, Bernhard S. and Jonas, Uwe. Pilotprojekt Gropiusstadt : Jahrbuch 2008. Berlin, Germany: Pilotprojekt Gropiusstadt, 2009
Les Pandas (Sara Létourneau & Francis O’Shaughnessy) / Chicoutimi
In this two week residency, we decided to work on various little projects instead of only a big one. We wanted to stay free to make anything that could pass through our head. We worked with what we found interesting in the area of Gropiusstadt and in the flat. We worked with words, as little notes or big signs, we did a lot of photos and started a little movie.
The notes: Don’t forget to eat; Agata called ; draw me a bird ; please do the dishes; you’ve been to long in the shower so I left
The project begins by putting little notes in the elevator of our building almost everyday. We wrote sweet and happy words on paper with little drawings. This was a public-private conversation between us. We taped these small papers at a strategic place where it could be seen by all the people living in the building. Sometimes residents replaced it somewhere else, but the rest of the time, it was torn and let on the floor.
Window signs: hello birds?; I’m falling; keep waiting, good-bye
Similar to this idea, we wrote some 3-words-sentences with red tape on pale green shower curtain on the window of our flat. People from Gropiushaus could see our big little sentence from their gallery, from their window and from the park down there. By night, our words were lighted from the inside of the flat and became a big illuminated sign.
The red dress woman photo and video project: fashion style with performative idea
We decided to work then on a photo project. We made a shooting in the flat, the fields and restricted areas. Sara was the main model. Strange postures, formal dressing in different environments. Sometimes, we were shy when people were walking with their dogs around our shooting places. Each time we were taking breaks the time they went through. When it was happening, we were like two people waiting in a nowhere. When they were gone, we were going back to the shooting. The photos turned then to video and we started to make little scenes of a movie that we’ll continue this autumn. The red dress woman. The subtle story of a lonely girl.
About PILOTPROJEKT GROPIUSSTADT:
Since 2002 artists can be invited to participate in the "Pilotprojekt Gropiusstadt“ to create ideas for temporary interventions in the public space of Gropiusstadt, Berlin. The artists develop their ideas during a stay in the area: the Deutsche Wohnen AG provides an apartment which is located in Gropiusstadt. The works done by the artists try to intervene in or interfere with normal daily life in Gropiusstadt, they can be kinds of actions which involve the inhabitants or just small interventions in the environment.
Crédit photo: Francis O’Shaughnessy et Sara Létourneau
