Champignon convertible

The intention is to create a free zone for exchanges, thoughts and interventions about and in the city, with a group of artists interested in urban issues and movements, with professionals from various disciplines (authorized and interested in establishing relationships of form and multiple meaning based on architectural messages and hidden clues) and with any other people interested in the “becoming-citizen.” The process is triggered by, among other things, a rather unusual element of architecture: a huge mushroom made of concrete, some fifteen metres high, erected in the 1960s, in the heart of downtown, at Place de l'esplanade.

If the architectural object denotes a way of inhabiting, as developed by Umberto Eco in The Absent Structure, this central, inescapable element of the mushroom takes us in many directions. Is it a sculpture, an over-designed monument, a daring architectonic structure or a colossal mistake? We allow ourselves to use its shape in order to enrich citizen culture with elements of reflection about the urban, the city, art and life (inhabited and inhabitable).

This project includes separate sections involving various protagonists:
Two residencies, a forum, a public artwork, a publication.

- Two six-day residencies brought together nine artists in groups of four and five, in January and February 2002 ; they were invited to inhabit the city, have a look at it, offer their visions of the world, of places and things here and there. The artists suggested itineraries in the city. These propositions were gathered in a guide-publication where sketches, photos, texts and maps lay side by side like so many ways of living and recounting that city, or other ones (in general). The space of a motion: suggesting places for walking, breathing, seeing, hearing, touching, inventing, questioning, listening, sharing, places to avoid, silently or otherwise, stroking the bark of trees by the river or running into the ubiquitous parking lots. Chance meetings, or meetings by chance. Offering perhaps a city “quality” that allows the community to wander, presenting a unifying city centre that is less commercial. Hitting the sidewalk differently, and not as squares that lead straight ahead.

[Suzanne Joly]

Bibliographical reference of the publication:
Joly, Suzanne, et al.., Le petit Joliette illustré. Parcourir la ville autrement,Joliette, Les Ateliers convertibles, 2002, n.p.
ISBN 2-922064-04-2