From September 14 to 16, 2020, the IIméra, Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) at Aix-Marseille University, hosted three evenings as part of the Union Traits.s program of Manifesta 13. The meetings entitled Mediterranean Encounters, Union Traits? brought together artists, critics, researchers, exhibition curators, or museum curators to exchange, debate, and share critical views as they would for works of art from the Mediterranean world.
Eyes and voices, images and lively words to try to better understand what is coming, beyond the ongoing disasters. The tears and faults are there, in the foreground, but what is happening between the two shores? Possible union traits may not be emerging and taking shape? Violence, borders, refusals, retreats, shipwrecks, conflicts saturate the political news of the Mediterranean world. But what is happening exactly before our eyes on the contemporary art scene? Does not something like the reverse of disaster exist? Of sap, life, inventions of the unknown and new forms, as rarely in this world? Under the calm of the plane trees, just behind the Palais Longchamp, in Marseille, the Iméra was a place to talk to each other, to listen to each other, to imagine together possible follow-ups, possible union traits between the two shores…
For three evenings, the Iméra opened its spaces to meetings and debates on contemporary creation in the Mediterranean.
September 14, 2020
Session #1
– Introduction by Thierry Fabre and Alya Sebti
– Meeting with Sara Ouhaddou, Samia Henni, Fabrice Denise – Culinary performance and discussion with Pierre Giannetti
Session #2 “A Sonorous Mediterranean” by Radio Grenouille in collaboration with Samia Henni
15 September, 2020
Session #3
– Meeting with Mohamed Laouli& Katrin Ströbel, Yazid Oulab and Emilie Sitzia
– Online Intervention Chiara Bertola
– Meeting with Anna Raimondo,Abdessamad el Mountassir and Gabrielle Camuset
16 September 2020
Session #4
– Meeting with Franck Pourcel, Katia Kameli and Marie Bovo
– Conversation with Thierry Fabre about “la Fabrique de Méditerranée”
– Closing, Online intervention Driss Ksikes: “The art of being indisciplined”
