Power from Within

Tiphaine Calmettes, Euridice Zaituna Kala and with the works already here of Laëtitia Badaut Haussmann, Emmanuelle Lainé & Benjamin Valenza, Sébastien Rémy & Cyril Verde

22/09/2018 – 15/12/2018

Guest curator: Élise Atangana

Now it’s the turn of the “power from within”. Curator Élise Atangana has borrowed the exhibition title from Starhawk, militant American ecofeminist and self-styled witch. In her Truth or Dare (1) she speaks of the “power-over” that rules the world and the counter-culture of the “power-from-within”: this power-from-within is power from below, from darkness, from the soil; power that comes from our blood, our lives and our passionate desire for the living body of the other. Moreover, the political issues of our time are also spiritual issues, conflicts between paradigms or fundamental principles. If we want to survive, the question becomes: do we overthrow, not those presently in power, but the principle of power-over? How do we go about building a society on the power-from-within principle? To reshape the very power principle our entire culture rests on, we have to undermine all the old divisions and the distancing that makes us see ourselves as apart from the world. We’re apart from nature, from other human beings and even from parts of ourselves. We see the world as divided up into isolated, lifeless parts with no inherent value. If, here at the art centre, we’ve been able to experiment— without naming it—with a certain kind of introspective, everyday “power-from-within”, the power in question involves acting on the reigning ambience within the walls of this stone house, giving rise to an affective landscape where the gaze does not really have any power over, but where the entire body is invited to stroll or even just hang out within.

^{1. Starhawk, Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery (New York: HarperOne, 1982).}

PERFORMANCE CANCELLED

Due to circumstances, the performance Franchir le seuil by Tiphaine Calmettes and Bastien Mignot scheduled for 5 pm is cancelled. The exhibition “Power from Within” remains accessible during opening hours, from 2 pm to 7 pm.

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