European meetings of the REFLEX(E) group

Politics is now at the heart of this debate. To take stock of this urgency, the REFLEX(E) group with Cassandre/Horschamp organized in Montreuil, near Paris, at Armand Gatti’s House, national and European Meetings.

Meetings for cultural and artistic action
A time for action The aim of Cassandre/Horschamp’s meetings is to bring artistic practices closer to the social and human problems nowadays, and build up networks of cultural, artistic and social workers, with these following priorities :

• To gather « brains » from various sectors (sociology, philosophy, history, anthropology, ethnology) into contact with cultural figures whose activity is connected with the social field, and to find elements of « useful » thinking in the intersection of these worlds.
  
• To bring artistic practices and their immediate environment, closer to the questions of our time.
  
• To put artists in contact with thinkers and actors from the working world.
  
• To enhance and encourage the creation of meetings and research spaces opened to public and artists.
  Since 1999, Cassandre/Horschamp has organized five national meetings for cultural and artistic action in local regions : at the Gérard Philipe theater in May, 1999, in the Rhone-Alpes region in January, 2000, in Bordeaux in April, 2000, in Loos-en- Gohelle in November, 2000, and in Avignon in July, 2001. Finally, the Horschamp on the event sphere, organized in July, 2001, in partnership with the EDF GDF’s Social Activities department and the CMCAS, allowed work teams and artists to present their activities and nourish the reflection on the relation of art to contemporary society, with daily thematic debates.
  These meetings allow various actors to find a good distance to review the local situation. We are interested in speaking with all those at the crossroads between two usually separated questions, future of art and problems of our society.
  At the origin of our action, an observation : All groups who try to connect their artistic practices to society as it is experienced, are not connected enough to each other, and closely enough considered by the institutions. The previous meetings helped to put into contact social and cultural figures and artistic groups with historians, philosophers, sociologists, including Jean Caune, Patrick Champagne, Denis Guénoun, Didier Lapeyronnie, Joël Roman, Pascal Nicolas-Le Strat, Philippe Henry, Luc Carton... The contact between groups working on the ground and thinkers from sometimes remote fields, gives an analytical and theoretical gaze on direct testimonies.
  The first meetings were dedicated to the principles of the art/ society relation in their historic evolution since the beginnings of decentralization. Testimonies and discussion meetings in Rhone-Alpes and Aquitaine multiplied the viewpoints and began the construction of a theoretical discourse about artistic practices on the borders between the usual categories. Today we would like to develop this preliminary analysis and to deepen it from the viewpoint of the situation of every investigated region.

Meetings are the occasion for an inventory of the current situation of artistic action in a given territory, with the contribution of thinkers, practitioners, amators and artists, whose interventions are published in the form of symposium proceedings.

They are completed, in the whole year through, by Cassandre’s monthly micro-meetings, which offer an inquiry into a particular experience with an actor from the cultural or social arena. This program of Micro-meetings began in 2001 and continues in 2002 in partnership with Theatre, Cinéma et Chanson Ile-de-France (THECIF).
The National Meetings in regions and the Micro-meetings feed the database horschamp.org, made for use by artists as well as cultural and social practitioners who wish to take up projects at the intersection of these fields.

Round Tables
The first priority in these meetings is to give scientists and cultural, social and political practitioners, working on the edges or in parallel to the established institutions, the opportunity to express themselves freely, in an inquiry into emergent or unrecognized practices at grips on a social change.
We are particularly concerned, in the composition of our Tables, to go beyond the splits that today seem so ineffective, between cultural and social workers, practitioners and observers. The organization of debates always leaves a privileged place, after presentation of the speakers, to debate with the public where everyone can speak up. Every Round Table will be preceded by video portraits where the speakers will be able to briefly explain the problems with which they want to deal.
1 / Place cultural questions at the heart of the political debate
Patric Bouchain, architect ; Mohamed Rouabhi, director, Les Acharnés theater troupe Big Brum, British theater troupe working with Edward Bond in high-schools. Pascal Lebrun-Cordier, professor at Paris 1 university, journalist ; Daniele Alboretti, sociologist
2 / Art on the « margins » and in difficult places
Olivier Pasquiers, The Bar Floreal, collective of photographers. Olivier Couder, director, Théâtre du Cristal. Aziz Chouaki, author ; Jochen Gerz, artist ; Bruno Boussagol, director, Brut de Béton Production
3 / Connections with the public : box-office culture or real exchange ?
Robert Abirached, the former director of the Theater, Ministry of Culture. Luc Carton, philosopher ; Stéphane Gatti, director, documentary artist, working in Saint-Dizier ; Madeleine Abassade, officer of cultural action, CHS La Verrière Éléonora Rossi
4 / Decentralization, regionalization : in the face of new feudalisms, which kind of cultural democracy ?
André Minvielle, musician from the Lubat group. Burattini, acrobat, puppeteer. Julien Blaine, poet, cultural agitator, former director of cultural affairs of Marseille ; Marc Lacreuse, director of the cultural affairs of Blanc-Mesnil ; Pascal Faucompré, officer of education and cultural action in ... Maguy Marin, Ministry of Agriculture, choreographer, manager of RAMDAM

5 / Transmission : amnesia in cultural policy ?
Pierre Debauche, stage director, director of the Day theater Tania Magy, Art Rom association ; Sotigui Kouyate, griot, comedian, director ; Lars Noren, dramatic author ; Edward Bond, dramatic author ; Jean Mennecier, researcher in the Museum of the Man ; Peter Brook, director ; Grégoire Ingold, director
6/ North/South Connections : neocolonialism, international formating or meeting with others ?
Lucien Hounk Patin, ethnopsychiatrist ; Aminata Traoré, the former Culture Minister of Mali. Jean-Jacques Samary, EuroSud Jean Michel Bruyère, author, the Man Kenen Ki association, director of Fabriks in Marseille « Les périphériques vous parlent », artists’ group and journal François Campana, director of Kyrnea International ; Moses Touré Jean-Claude Amara, Droits Devant
7/ Public/ Private : between the cultural industry and the corporate sponsorship, which strategies of resistance ?
Christian Salmon, General Secretary of the writer’s parliament ; Loïc Wacquant, sociologist ; Marc Le Glatin, responsible for ATTAC culture ; Xavier Fourt, artist, Syndicat potentiel. Reclaim The Streets, group of British artistic agitators ; Antoine Perrot, artist, president of the FRAAP David Langlois Mallet, journalist
8/ Culture and working world : between militant history, amnesia and instrumentalisation
Pascal Nicolas-Le-Strat, sociologist. François Mairey, La Forge collective, Val-de-Nièvre. Nicolas Frize, musician, composer. Annie Pourre, confondatrice of DAL and Droit au Logement Geneviève Rando, director of the Bordeaux-North community centre ;

9 / Which new cultural policies ?
Is there any political force behind cultural policy on the state level ? Didier Lapeyronnie Jean Caune, researcher specialist of cultural policies Katerine Louineau,artist Brian Holmes, translator and art critic Hans Haacke, artist Glob-théâtre Les « squatteureuses »
Summary : Dario Fo Patrick Champagne, sociologist
Moderators :