WITH THE COLLECTIVE L’ISBA

Take time to look at the artworks, with no explanations. A time of silence. Just observing. And then have fun, sometimes using sound and music, dreaming up a story around these works. I had a dream… it starts like that. Taking the work you have chosen as your starting point, let your own “interpretation” loose and tell its tale. A sort of fantasy in 3D. The dreams of grown-ups and of children. Dare to speak, gently and calmly. While having fun, too. And head off back to the artworks and their presentation. A sort of entertaining passageway between what we dream about and through the artworks, and what hides behind their artists’ dreams.

Based in Arles since 2009, the L’Isba collective shares its love of words, music-making, speech and theatre with the public. Its work draws upon texts, but equally upon human experiences, memories and differences. This desire to restore space to the spoken word and to share it translates into numerous workshops held both at the local level and in conjunction with Arles’ cultural institutions. Founders Catherine Krajewski, actress and drama teacher, François De Bortoli, sound composer and technical director, and Jean-François Veran, author/composer/performer, were soon joined by other “inventors”, who reinforce and enlarge the collective over the course of its productions, opening it ever wider to sounds and voices from outside.

Photo: Andrea Büttner, Coins, 2017, woodcut 124 x 173 cm.