Project title: Je passe / J’habite /Je vis

Schedule:
Authors of the project: focAR group(Alina Tudor and Razvan Neagoe)
Artists in residence: 16th august – 16th september 2011
Exhibition: 17th september – 16th october 2011
Du lundi au vendredi, de 14 h à 19 h
Ouvertures exceptionnelles le samedi 17/09,
de 12h à 22h et le dimanche 18/09, de 11h à 19h

Project context: City Switch
Producer: Roger Tator Galery, France
Organizers: Modernism.ro, Romania, Roger Tator Galery, France
Partners: Romanian Cultural Insitute Paris, France
Starting from the idea that every place is defined by the people who live there, we are now faced with a mixture of nationalities and races which is helped by the tourism to increase its diversity. So that man become beset by men. From the outside. Coming and leaving. Flurry, order and disorder.

Then architecture–city and urban–city too.

Pleasant and civilised congeries of very new and very old. Two notions wich can paradoxically survive and help each other beeing juxtaposed. They highlight each other.

The project’s intention is to reflect inside the outside space as it really looks for the people who visit or live in it. We wanted to understand and watch the City of Lyon from two different points of view, through the inhabitants’ eyes and the tourists’ eyes.
We considered the two different perspectives and mixed them in an art installation.
Living in Lyon we understood there were two worlds coexisting. The inhabitants interfere less with the tourists but from inhabitants’ point of view the tourism means crowd and it can be annoying sometimes.
Using the separation of these worlds as a main idea of the project, the installation is made of four parts:

• THE RECTANGLE: the rectangle is very used in Lyon’s architecture so that we decided to describe it inside the container. It is designed as a rectangle in perspective and it is an expression of the inhabitants and their homes. The rectangle contains a projection on the wall and the floor of the container made by the names of the inhabitants of Lyon.
In the middle of these names there is a watering can as a resonance with the green space of Lyon which needs to be larger. Generally speaking, the watering can is a symbol for growing and looking after; so that we want to keep this idea for the project: the growing and improving green space, the growing and improving living space.

• THE TOURISTIC LAB: tourism can be very annoying for the inhabitants but it represents a very actual side of the city. This lab is made of different things that remind of tourism: kitsch souvenirs, remains of drinks or food (collected from famous places) and pieces of the touristic space (water from Rhone or Saone, sand, leaves, earth etc)
The installation is about the common things you can see and use every day, things that in the tourism terms become different, unusual, souvenirs or piece of landscape.

• THE INHABITANTS LAB: this lab is a representation of the other side of the city, it’s about the inhabitants thoughts and opinions. It is presented as a video projected on the front wall of the container.
It is focused around the inhabitants of the 7th district points of view as a particular case of the city. We chose this area for the film because this is the place where we worked during the art residency and we could observe it more than any other inhabitants’ areas.
Last but not least, the 7th district is not touched yet by tourism; it is still multicoloured and owns a strong personality. Lived by different races and types of people we found it unique and we think it’s a place that should be kept without being majorly changed in terms of multiculturalism.
From this point of view the video is a reflection of the district inside the container. People were invited to answer a few questions about the city, the area and about the tourism as well. Their answers compose an interesting lab of opinions.

• THE VISITORS: the fourth piece of installation is made by the visitors themselves. Our artwork is completed only when the container is visited by 1 or 2 persons.
The 12 square metres surface of the container is the surface corresponding for 1.6 persons in Lyon. The number is obtained dividing the Lyon surface on the number of people founding here (tourists and inhabitants).
Entering the container people can see a real image of the space they belong/use/take.