project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

ESCALE Project "ten years later"

Project proposed by the international artist group ESCALE Co-organized by: SPRAY association, Marseille, France in partnership with the mauritian association pARTage, Mauritius and the support of the Ministry of Arts and Culture, Mauritius

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

Description of the project / dates and sites

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Residency/ workshop in Mauritius with 20 artists from the international ESCALE artist organization and 10 mauritian artists The idea laboratory: “time - ten years later”

Participants

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ESCALE’s artists

Vidir Arnason - Iceland, Mika Biermann - Germany, Francesco Felipe - Spain, Dieter Kunz - Germany, Vitemis Lingys - Lithuania, Nancy Mercury - USA, Norbert Mauk - Germany, Danmautas Plechavicius Lithuania, Antje Poppinga - Germany, Diana Radaviciute - Lithuania, Mireya Samper - Iceland, Renata Valeik - Lithuania, Aistaute Valiute - Lithuania, Saulius Valius - Lithuania, Manou Soobhany - Mauritius, Patricia Wich - Paraguay, Piotr Zamowski - Poland =

Mauritian artists

Emilie Carosin- Mauritius, Arianna Cziffra - Mauritius, Adjmal Dulloo (Mauritius), Sultana Haukim Mauritius, Krishna Luchoomun - Mauritius, Rishi Seeruttun - Mauritius, Nathalia Vadamootoo - Mauritius, Quator Mauritian Experiment (Gavin Poonoosamy, Fred François, Norbert Plavel, Arnaud Gachet) Mauritius

The place

The workshop takes place at Flic en Flac, Mauritius

The dates

Workshop 10th December - 12th January 2007/08 The work in situ takes place at Flic en Flac during a 4 week period.

Exhibition

Opening, Friday 11th January 2008, 5pm Exhibition at the Old Prison, Port Louis The exhibition will stay open for public visit from the 12th to the 27th January

Documentation

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Organization

The project is organized in Partnership between the mauritian artist association pARTage and the international artist groupe ESCALE, represented by the french association SPRAY. The project is supported by the Ministry of Arts and Culture, Mauritius.

webside: http://escale1.free.fr

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

Introduction : time - ten years later

TIME: MAURITIUS ISLAND - TEN YEARS LATER: "Time? I don’t know what you mean, Miss Elsa." Some time ago a newspaper asked a critic to write about a new bestseller titled “Writers: how to make it short”. Next day in the column “The book of the week”, one could read: “Good”. 1997, a group of international artists went to Mauritius Island, for a Workshop and exhibition. Ten years later, they are returning to Mauritius. Ten years, that means 3650 days; 25.500 hours of sleep; 78.800.000 respirations; 8000 liters of water; 6500 hours of television; maybe 16 new pairs of shoes; 700 french kisses; some new friends. How many artworks? Nobody knows. Art is made of time, and passing time is an art. So all is there. No walking in circles, no walking the line, no climbing pyramids to declaim bombast. Talking about time makes time go by. To forget about time, there is sex, wine and sleep... To waste time, there is television, paperwork, and traffic jams... To get a good taste of time, there is art... The taste of time, we have it in our mouths every morning waking up. That’s why we brush our teeth thoroughly: to forget about our mortal condition. The artist is a cook who goes to work and cooks a timemeal. Sometimes it's just a hamburger, sometimes it's oysters and champagne. But time is always the salt and the pepper. Time gives the taste to the picnic and the feast of art. TIME is written on our lunchboxes. Time is the loose money of the universe. It took Leonardo (who happened to be quite slow, as they say) months to paint the Mona Lisa. The model and Leonardo were alone in the studio. Nobody else would have lost time with them, waiting for the picture to be completed, waiting for the colours to dry on the canvas, waiting for the lines to deepen like wrinkles. The painter was focused on eternal futility. The model saw only the back of the canvas, and perhaps felt bored. Since then they both have died, and a tourist from Japan or Lichtenstein in the Louvre takes about one minute to appreciate this generous gift of time, which is as good as one year by the scale of the age of the universe. The art-dealer Vollard spent more than a hundred days posing from dusk to dawn for Paul Cézanne. He was not allowed to speak or to move: the painter told him to stay put like an apple. In the end Cézanne left his painting unfinished, though he conceded that the shirtfront was quite well done - not more than a rhombus the size of a palm in the middle of the canvas. Art can be made more quickly (Chris Burden let a friend shoot a bullet into his arm - a quarter of a second....) or more slowly (Bogomir Ecker created a drop-machine to build up a real stalactite, guaranteed by the museum in Hamburg to run until 2352, which will give about 2 mm of dripstone). The artist takes his time, makes time go by, and stops his watch when the work is done. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millenniums, aeons mean nothing to him. A bathtub or an ocean: you’ll be wet anyhow. So Times: ten years later, the title of the Mauritius workshop, (ten years: the average live-span of a dog...) is just a joke. A serious joke. Exactly like time. Everybody who took the time to read these lines got older for some minutes. No matter whatever gives the illusion to stop time - yet time is going on ... smoothly ... evenly ...

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

ESCALE in Mauritius - ten years later

In 1997, twenty-five international artists went to Mauritius Island, for a residence project, workshop and exhibition, called " ESCALE in Mauritius". This first meeting brought on many interesting events, interesting encounters, new perspectives and gave way to the creation of ESCALE, a group of artists travelling and working in situ around the world, wherever and whenever an occasion, an inspiration, a possibility occurred. Forming an open, elastic structure, ESCALE artists went to India, Chile, France, and Russia to work and to prosper. In 2007, ten years later, the idea of Manou Soobhany and Krishna Luchoomun, the organizers of the first ESCALE-event, was to go back once more to Mauritius Island: the same place, the same people, the same time of the year, the same exhibition space, everything the same, just ten years later ... To find out what had changed. This, of course, was not possible. Everything had changed. Not even one single grain of sand was still in the same spot. ESCALE means some new people now, and the old artists are even older. "The times they are a-changin'." Everything is different, even the everlasting roll of the waves on the strands of Mauritius, because the glances are different. The points of view have shifted. Time did its job. So Manou and Krishna decided to take it easy. The new project is just “Ten years later”, and all the artists met along the road are welcome to celebrate. The working-title is “TIME”. Meeting again on Mauritius Island to find out what time means, and create work about it, is challenge enough for a jubilee.

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

Organizers

Organizers

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ESCALE, international artist group see next page for more information about ESCALE contact of the founder of ESCALE, also president of SPRAY association, Manou Soobhany Burghausener Strasse 4, 80634 München, Allemagne - tel. 00 49 (0)8913959666 mail: [email protected]

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The french association SPRAY, SPRAY is a french artist association, based in Marseille, France SPRAY was founded in 2001 by some of the participant artists of ESCALE in order to organize an ESCALE workshop in Marseille (“13001frioul”, 2004). Since then SPRAY administers the organization of some of the ESCALE’s international artist’s projects. SPRAY is not receiving any public or private support. Association SPRAY - loi du 1er juillet 1901 - N° Siret 440 622 991 00014 92 boulevard Longchamp - 13001 Marseille, France - tel./fax 00 33 (0)4 91 08 57 91 mail: [email protected] - http://a.spray.free.fr - contact : Antje Poppinga

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pARTage, mauritian artist group The founder of pARTage has been participating in the very first ESCALE project ten years ago. Since then, independing to ESCALE, he raised the organisation of an artist structure in Mauritius, who is actually working together wit other internation structures like Triangle. contact Krishna Luchoomun Clair Fonds Road N°1, Vacoas, Îles Maurice mail: [email protected] - tel.: +230 7519045 Website: http://www.partaz.org or http://www.artshost.org/partage

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

What is ESCALE ?

1993, Düsseldorf, Germany The idea of ESCALE was born in Düsseldorf, Germany during preparations for an artistic journey, organized by Günter Uecker, then a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. This gave birth to the ESCALE workshops, each gathering about 20 international artists, around one project, in different countries of the world. The exhibition space “Gallery ESCALE” was created, in Düsseldorf, as well. Although, Gallery ESCALE no longer exists, ESCALE’s artistic journeys still take place regularly.

1994 to present ... ESCALE is a group of international artists, who come together, in different parts of the world, to create works of art for projects based on one idea or issue appropriate to the venue where the project is taking place. ESCALE is not a classical group of artists in which members share the same canon of defined ideas. Instead, ESCALE is an artistic project permanently in progress… Through meetings with local artists the ESCALE circle grows, changes form, size and configuration. It is this elasticity which defines the originality of ESCALE’s projects. This mobility of the spirit and body permanently engenders new possibilities of artistic intervention. Artists from all over the world come, with their own histories and perspectives, to meet and work together in a new environment. Each workshop takes place at the invitation of one or several artists, who invite the group to his or her home country. The countries, the places, the conditions of everyday life and work, the timing of the workshops, financial possibilities and exhibition opportunities differ each time. One can describe the intervention of ESCALE as an outbreak of a propitious fever which changes conditions and circumstances for a short time, briefly contaminating people and places and then disappearing, leaving behind a trace memory of the interactions and the work, accomplished together.

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

Previous ESCALE projects

1994/95

"MADE IN MAURITIUS", Exhibition at the NPF Building, Euréka, Île Maurice Followed by an exhibition in Düsseldorf (RFA), Galerie Escale 24 artists / catalog

1996

"120 FIGURES", Exhibition at the Galerie of Kay Won School of Art, Séoul, South Corea Exhibition at the Galerie of Séoul 12 artists / catalog

1997

"ESCALE IN MAURITIUS", Exhibition at the Galerie Dodo, Euréka, Île Maurice 19 artists / catalog

1999

"9/7", Shillong - Meghalaya, North-est of India Exhibition at the MAN, museum of national art, Shillong,India 22 artists

2000/01

"MYTHS OF MODERN TIMES", MAC, Santiago de Chile, Chile Residency at Valparaiso, Chile Exhibition in the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Santiago de Chile, Chile 14 artists

2000/01

"EL DIA", Ex-Carcel, Valparaiso, Chile Exhibition - one day presentation in the ancient prison of Valparaiso 40 artists with the participation of the artschool of Valparaiso / mini-catalog with individuel cartes

2000

TNM, TELENOMADE, Internet site: “en direct du Chili” Individuel project by for 4 artists participing at the workshop d’ESCALE in Chile http://telenomade.free.fr

2002/03

"CONFLUENCIAS ", MAM, Museo de Arte Moderno, Castro, Île of Chiloë, Chile 10 artists / ESCALE in collaboration with the chilien artist group PAN / catalog MAM

2004

“13001 FRIOUL”, Hôpital Caroline, Îles de Frioul, Marseille, France ESPACE CULTURE, Marseille, France 30 artists of ESCALE, 10 french artists, N°30 of the french art revue TROU, published one edition concerning the project 16 students from the Departement of Design University of Applied Sciences - MKI, Düsseldorf, RFA the project was documentated by the Departement of Design University of Applied Sciences, MKI, Düsseldorf, RFA - www.13001frioul.net - site web realised by the MKI - scale model of a catalog : “Bilderbuch”, 200 pages, colorfotos

2007

"WRONG MISTAKES", Mychkin, Russia 12 artists of ESCALE, 20 russian artists, N°33 of the french art revue TROU, published one edition concerning the project This project will be followed by a retrospectif exhibition in Moscow in mars 2008

next projects 2007/08

"TIME - TEN YEARS LATER", Île Maurice proposition of Manou Soobhany

2008 (?)

"CASADIAMANTINA", Pachamama - l'art de la terre, Bresil ESCALE project in collaboration with the french association PACHAMAMA, Marseille Construction project of an “art-house” in the very countryside, Bahia, Brésil

2008 (?)

"DANS LE DESERT”, Algerie proposition of Yassid Oulab

project ESCALE in Mauritius - 2007/08

time - ten years later

The artists

Listing of artists participating in the ESCALE project TIME- ten years later. For information about any artists see the web site : http://escale1.free.fr

working in France Mika Biermann (Germany) Antje Poppinga (Germany) working in Germany Dieter Kunz (Germany) Norbert Mauk (Germany) Eva Müller-Artelt (Germany) Kristine Schröder (Germany) Manou Soobhany (Mauritius) Piotr Zamojski (Poland) Lithuania Vytenis Lingys ( Lithuania) Danmautas Plechavicius (Lithuania) Diana Radaviciute ( Lithuania) Renata Valeik ( Lithuania) Saulius Valius (Lithuania) Aistaute Valiute Lithuania Iceland Vidir Arnason (Iceland) Mireya Samper (Iceland)

Spain Francesco Felipe (Spain) Southamerica Patricia Wich (Paraguay) Northamerica Nancy Mercury (USA) Mauritius Emilie Carosin (Mauritius) Ariana Cziffra (Mauritius) Adjmal Dulloo (Mauritius/Italie) Sultana Haukim (Mauritius) Krishna Luchoomun (Mauritius) Rishi Seeruttun (Mauritius) Nathalia Vadamootoo (Mauritius/Colombia) Quator Mauritian Experiment (Mauritius) Gavin Poonoosamy, Fred François, Norbert Plavel, Arnaud Gachet)