Insiders: between architecture and art

Since the first investigations carried out in 1804 by the Académie Celtique, whose job it was to collect the traditions, customs and languages, followed by the introduction of the term folklore by William Thoms in 1846, the notion of folklore has always constituted an alternative to central power, and has always been associated with the definition of local identities. It is the setting for a symbolic confrontation: popular knowledge versus the knowledge of an elite eager to preserve the notion of universalism. For this reason the exhibition deliberately reflects a change in civilization where the rules of the old division between “dominant culture” and “counter-cultures” has evolved: working as a network within a global system, current folklore-related practices in the field of art proceed by appropriation and transformation, delocalization and relocalization, intermingling and recycling. Insiders are members of a small group of people who share knowledge that is protected by precise codes of transmission. Unlike the expert, whose position is more remote, insiders have in their hands the raw materials of the cultural context to which they belong and which they can legitimately observe or represent. The circulation and transformation of these forms of knowledge are part and parcel of what this exhibition sets out to present.

In order to understand these approaches, the overall method of the Insiders project is based on the principle of on-the-spot investigation, after the manner of the early folklorists who worked in their own particular areas using techniques of observation and inventory. To bring this method of investigation up to date, a number of “observer/participants” (artists, curators, collectors, collectives and so on) in various parts of the world have been asked to share their experiences. We have chosen to address each of the selected projects from the point of view of their methods, approaches and expertise, providing an inventory of the types of action they involve: amplification (augmenting, adding on, etc), bricolage (do-it-yourself, dismantling and reassembly, transforming, adapting, developing, etc), celebrating (commemorating, parading, initiation, etc), exchange (borrowing, swapping, recycling, repurposing, etc), collecting (accumulating, piling up, archiving, etc), playing (competing, participating, challenging, etc), revising (reconstituting, replaying, imitating, copying, reconnecting, etc), transmission (sharing immaterial knowledge, cultural codes, codes of identity, etc). All these actions are linked by a common theme – that of “collection” – which has key importance in the framework of Insiders. This theme – which subsumes notions of selecting, bringing together, highlighting and preserving items within a whole – forms a common thread in folkloric, artistic, anthropological and museographic processes. All the propositions selected for the exhibition involve the idea of collecting objects, information, singular events and minor stories, whose modes of transmission might include raw archives, documentary films, themed museum displays, storytelling and performance.

As these modes of expression are so very diverse, the exhibition avoids a synthetic approach, attempting a more disparate form somewhere between order and chaos, akin to a choral recitative. Charlotte Laubard, Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Émilie Renard, curators for the CAPC Christophe Kihm, scientific adviser

This selection is the result of a survey in the fields of architecture and urban design focusing on the relationships and influences that link “high” culture to “popular” culture. It is true that it reflects a period marked by deep concern for the future: a time that is saturated with references and dominated by imperatives of awareness and environmental ethics. Both incomplete and representative, this collection focuses on themes that belie its underlying preoccupations: recycling, passing things on, participating, celebrating. It shows that it is possible to build differently, highlighting as it does alternative techniques that blur the frontiers between professional and amateur work, creating new approaches and thus new forms.

How does bringing together these two habitually distinct forms of culture call the discipline of architecture into question? Does it enable architecture to go beyond itself, to find new approaches that are better equipped to serve emerging uses and lifestyles, to address the needs of the most deprived members of society, to find new territories so that it can begin telling its stories again? In recent years, a growing number of architects have been developing strategies that constitute a new repertoire for the profession. They use contemporary technologies to reawaken a sense of craftsmanship and place it at the heart of architecture. Some of them map urban uses and explore the challenges and potential of informal architecture. Some teach as they build – what better than a school to experiment with new models? Some, influenced by virtual reality and videogames, fuel the contemporary imagination by telling new stories. Some turn recycling, collecting and inhabitual using of objects into a reservoir of ideas for the future. Some are selftaught and have chosen to give concrete form to their own architectural legends. Some invest and occupy public space, sending our certitudes spinning off the rails, exploding institutional frameworks and creating temporary facilities capable of rehabilitating entire neighbourhoods…

We have chosen to highlight the work of architects who express themselves in unusual and unconventional ways. These are architects (qualified or not) who seek out areas of free experimentation, marginal and precarious situations, zones that escape control, and land “devoid of qualities”. They invest public space that is all too often confiscated, organising and perpetuating collective uses and festive rites. They readily draw their inspiration from traditional crafts, models of informal architecture, and self-building. They forge new links with traditional expertise, with ornamentation, with the vernacular, and with craftsmanship. They engage in new forms of social and political commitment, making constant use of experimentation, opening their work up to daily life and the wishes of the greatest number, getting people to participate and working within random or indeterminate timeframes. These architects open up new perspectives, clearing a path through the world of the future and helping us to inhabit it more effectively. Michel Jacques, Claire Petetin, Éric Troussicot, Francine Fort, curators for Arc en Rêve