17
Jun
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Il y a plus ou moins un an, j’ai franchi le pas entre l’école d’art et le monde de la communication en rejoignant les effectifs d’une agence digitale. Bien sûr, il m’arrive quelques fois de regretter de n’avoir que peu de temps à consacrer à ce qui était l’objet premier de mes études, mais je me console à l’idée qu’il s’agisse d’une occasion bienvenue de laisser ma pratique en jachère quelques temps, et également d’une opportunité d’explorer un nouveau champ de connaissances, en l’occurrence le marketing (en plus de pouvoir, accessoirement, goûter à un semblant de stabilité financière).
Profondément imprégné par ma formation initiale, je ne peux néanmoins m’empêcher de vouloir tout ramener à une certaine proximité de l’art, peut-être par crainte de me laisser emporter trop loin par le courant. Par chance, l’art a plutôt tendance à s’ouvrir aux autres disciplines et même à s’en nourrir, à la manière d’un morceau de pâte à modeler qui en ingèrerait d’autres pour devenir une masse informe aux couleurs dégueulasses.
C’est donc tout naturellement que mon intérêt se porte sur les ponts possibles entre les deux blocs ; les liens formés par l’utilisation de techniques et outils marketing par les artistes et autres acteurs et institutions de l’art. Certains peuvent paraître évidents, comme la relation quasi-intrinsèque qui est à l’œuvre au sein du marché de l’art ou art market — qui donnerait un mélange de pâte à modeler presque totalement homogène —, ou le format de l’exposition, qui accorde de la visibilité et un potentiel de diffusion à un ou plusieurs artistes et leurs œuvres le temps d’un évènement au sens large — que je visualiserais cette fois comme deux morceaux de pâte à modeler greffés l’un à l’autre sans pour autant se mélanger.
Mais la vente et la promotion, évoquées dans ces deux exemples, ne sont pas nécessairement les seules fins du marketing, et son intégration peut également débuter dans les étapes de la création de l’œuvre, à partir du moment où sa mise en espace et sa mise en relation avec quelconque élément extérieur à elle sont envisagées ; car de ces agencements et interactions particuliers découleront des expériences variables, celles des individus qui composeront son potentiel public.
Les stratégies marketing semblent justement tourner autour de l’expérience : celle du client avant, au moment de ou après l’achat ; face à une marque, un point de vente, un produit ou lors de l’utilisation de ce même produit. Sans aller jusqu’à comparer l’œuvre d’art au produit de consommation, je ne peux m’empêcher de penser que l’approche marketing et la démarche artistique ont en commun que leur communication repose sur les effets qu’elle pourrait induire sur des éléments comme les émotions, les sentiments, la culture, les connaissances (ou le manque de connaissances) des individus auxquels elles sont destinées, que les méthodes de cette communication soient fondées sur des données statistiques précises ou de pures intuitions.
Si dans tous les cas, cela peut s’apparenter à une certaine forme de manipulation psychologique, les divergences se situent dans les intentions et les objectifs qui se trouvent à la source de ces méthodes, ainsi que dans les conditions nécessaires à la production de l’expérience, et enfin dans cette expérience elle-même. Inciter à la consommation, diffuser un message politique, communiquer une certaine vision du monde, exprimer un état d’esprit, etc., sont autant de raisons possibles de recourir au marketing, mais toutes ne produisent évidemment pas la même expérience.
Je ne souhaite pas développer ces réflexions avec l’objectif de fournir un manuel sur ce que serait une communication artistique efficace (car j’en serais de toute façon incapable). Il s’agit plutôt d’une démarche orientée vers la volonté modérément idéaliste de recentrer la pratique artistique sur une prise en considération augmentée et assumée de son public, de ses “consommateurs” et des expériences que pourraient produire leur rencontre.
Dans ce raisonnement, le marketing ne doit pas être imaginé comme une entité sur laquelle la publicité et la propagande auraient la mainmise, mais plutôt comme un ensemble d’outils libres qui se trouvent être également à la disposition des artistes pour une utilisation consentie et éclairée.
24
Aug
Benou is saying farewell to Nottingham.
I left Nottingham on August 3rd carrying two suitcases and a bag full of everything I could bring along. My little “adventure” in UK is over. I’m heading back to La Réunion.
But before going back to the tropics, I’m enjoying what’s left of this month to visit pieces of France again — under the beautiful Summer sun this time.
These are also the last days of the foretaste of independence I was allowed for ten months. I’m moving back with mom and dad, retrieving my life and habits where I left them.
08
Aug
Rye Attic gallery, during our opening event.
Our second and last exhibition of the year was hosted by Rye Attic, a space opened a few months ago in New Basford, Nottingham. It is a bit remote from the city centre but nice looking, and it suited exactly our needs.
We opened on the 18th of July and until the week-end, a period that overlapped the Graduation week. Our exhibition was also “competing” with the MA Photography’s final show and the rest of the MA’s, which both looked great.
We didn’t get as many visitors as we expected nor wanted to, but I think we were all satisfied with what we had achieved.
Though we are all using a variety of different media, Zoé, Jilly, Emily and I are connected in our practices by our relationship to Time. We also share interest in social and political issues, which materialized through the works we showed.
My part was mainly centered around the notions of displacement, migration and diaspora.
Untitled (yet) is a series of pages from my notebook with little drawings and marks similar to the ones used by prisoners to count days. One of them is a photograph of my hand with the same kind of markings, and in the same format as the other pages.
I started this collection at Peak District by counting snails, slugs and worms I encountered during my walks: “the population of the fields”. The following records consisted in counting mundane activities such as how many times I used the blue water tap instead of the red one, or how often I went on Facebook. One page is a day.
This childish activity becomes a social comment when it makes you realize, for instance, how many CCTV cameras you may encounter on the way home or that only 22% of the gastropods have a shell to call home.
“Ich bin ein Tourist” is an installation made of enveloppes placed in circle formation in a square made by black and yellow striped tape. Each enveloppe represents a stay in a city where I arrived and departed from a same train station. The name of the said station is stamped along with the dates of the stay. A red drawing materializes my journey in the city, starting in the center and ending at the same point to close the loop.
The reference to Kennedy’s iconic phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner” confronts the president’s speech in 1963 with the reality of the world half a century later; the citizens of the “Western world” have never been so free compared to “the others”, and we actually have so much freedom that we can afford to cede some in exchange for so-called safety and promises of better NHS funding.
“Real” freedom — real, as in real mayonnaise — might only exist in the form of tourism, a privilege mostly owned by wealthy Westerners. On the other side of the barrier, refugees are trapped between their devastated homes and closed doors.
For some of them, train stations, which are originally meant to be places of transition between arrival and departure, have become places of uncertainty.
La Réunion is a framed print of a map of England with the shape of La Réunion drawn within its borders. The geographical north and the scale are the same for the two maps. My home in Nottingham and my home on the island are overlapping to create an imaginary space where personal history, culture and memories are melting.
This exhibition was part of our assessment, and we all succeeded. Now I’m on the way back to La Réunion for the second year of Master.
10
Jul
The Pride in London 2016 parade on the 25th of July.
Two weeks ago, I went to London to take part in Pride in London 2016 as a volunteer. It was my first volunteering experience as well as my first Pride ever, and it ended up being one of the best week-end of my life.
I didn’t see much of the Parade on Saturday. I was meant to be in it as a Steward, but I arrived too late for the check in and was assigned to another role, off the parade route.
I’m not going to lie, Fundraising was a challenging role for me, especially as a first-timer. I felt like asking for people’s generosity was assuming they were too selfish to donate spontaneously. And honestly, I don’t like being asked for money myself.
I tried to keep smiling and being positive, but being ignored and avoided by people who don’t have any time to waste was lowering my self-esteem to something close to zero — being posted at a Tube station entrance during peak-hour didn’t help either.
Thankfully, I had supportive partners, and some people were happy to donate their spare change and encouraging me. When you are so low, even a simple smile or a hello back becomes a burst of happiness. The weather was on my side as well; I was glad to get my tan back.
The most rewarding part was of course to have contributed to a great cause. Pride in London is a relatively costly event, but it is kept free for its visitors thanks to sponsorship and donations mainly.
I volunteered again on the next day, as a Steward in the Pride in the Park event. This one was more relaxed than the Parade but it was still a busy one. I had a great time there, meeting people and waving the Pride in London flag and the rainbow flag.
I also took some time to wander in London and to visit Tate Modern’s new building which opened recently. The view of London from the top reminded me of my first day in the City, ten months earlier.
This short but delightful adventure in London helped me to digest the result of the EU referendum.
It also reminded me how important it is to fight for equality.
For a few days I had stopped considering my sexual orientation as discriminating. And strangely enough, it even became so trivial I didn’t think about it at all, as if it had never mattered. That’s the way I wish I could feel all the time and everywhere.
23
Jun
Field view, somewhere around Hartington.
April and May had some relatively warm and sunny days to witness the end of winter.
This weather was favorable for the few days we spent with the MA Photography Students in the English countryside, at Hartington Hall.
This former manor is located nearby Hartington village and close to wide fields were we were able to see cows, sheeps, horses and other farm animals.
We only spent three days and two nights there, but being back to Nottingham was a shock for me.
The fresh air of the reposing countryside, the bounds made on the long muddy roads; all of this then seemed to have just been a distant memory.
My next journey led me to Leicester, home of the Premier League champions.
It wasn’t for sport that I went there, but to attend the Comic Con from which I returned with a bag full of Pokémon plushes and figures.
During the following days, I went to London to train for a volunteering role in the Pride in London parade, which will be held this week-end.
