PCAI is creatively collaborating with the French Institute of Athens and artists Théo Mercier and Arthur Hoffner on the occasion of the “Scénographie Engagée”: Workshops programme.”Scénographie Engagée” is a project dedicated to the art of scenography in the performing arts. The project aims to create a platform for exchange, experimentation, creation and networking for professionals in the broader field of scenography. Focusing on environmental and identity-related issues, the project includes workshops and practical research for professionals, as well as a public program of conferences and performances, to raise awareness among the general public and fuel debate and reflection on new perspectives for a new world.
As part of the programme PCAI and Just Go Zero by Polygreen are partnering with the Waste for Time workshop that will be held on June 20–21, 2024 by artists Théo Mercier and Arthur Hoffner.How can we move, valorise, and re-enchant the city’s waste, the remains of the world? How can we make visible and modify our vision of the devalued materials, although they are available in abundance? What role should we assign to what we put aside? The Waste for Time workshop participants are invited to create a space of reconciliation with what is usually neglected, to highlight and put back at the centre what is condemned to the peripheries. An imaginary piece, the writing of which remains open, will be the pretext for the collective creation of a scenography designed in only one day. We will imagine and create a collection of monumental sculptures intended to take into consideration one or two bodies per object. There are many performative devices to activate, animate, dance, or sing. This collective work will be articulated in two distinct moments of research: the first phase will be the search and collection of materials across the city, which will be reinvested in a second phase, devoted to the design and creation of these scenographic devices. We will consider them as an evolving and unique space, likely to be nourished by its location and the transience of its appearance, as well as its disappearance.
*The workshop’s outcome will be presented to the public.
Théo Mercier is a sculptor and stage director. Claiming formal freedom, he sets out to deconstruct the mechanisms of history, objects, and representations, in which he recreates harmonious contradictions. By turns explorer, collector, and artist, his work is at the crossroads of anthropology, geopolitics, tourism, and landscape. Arthur Hoffner is a sculptor, designer, and craftsman. Through diversion games and absurd humour, he stages everyday life and mingles the notions of preciousness, formality, superficiality, and even triviality. In his work, matters collide and combine to question the aesthetic emotions of banality.
Language: English
Target Group: 10 sculpture/scenography students and 4 dance performers
Number of Participants: 14 max
Activity aligned with Goals 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17
