HOME/LAND

Conceived as a living installation, HOME/LAND can be explored without any set temporality. Audience members move freely, advancing from one space to another at their own pace.

HOME/LAND explores the concept of “home” and the idea of where we come from through a collection of stories placed on lined up chairs, to be read under the light of a lamp. These stories reflect how the places we’ve lived in shape who we are, numerous testimonies talk about exile, identity, otherness, torn out or found roots. By immersing themselves in these personal stories, audience members are invited to reflect on and question their own histories and the ephemeral nature of all things.

Beyond a show, HOME/LAND is an experience. An intimate, personal journey, along the paths of individual and collective memories.

You enter a place apart, where time seems to have stood still. A strange silence reigns, yet life pulsates here, the atmosphere calm but rhythmic: atonal music, the sound of movement, murmuring voices, the whispering of archivists…

Over here, the reading room: thirty chairs lined up in rows with pools of light on people reading quietly. Over there, at the archivists’ tables, people chat intensely, face-to-face and in hushed tones. Further on, above the counter, phrases scroll by: “I’m from a yellow-checked cloth… I’m from the necklace around your neck… I’m from a colored wooden oar that gives your hands blisters…” Everywhere in this place, in the different spaces that follow one another, people observe each other, communicate without speaking, follow instructions, and move according to codes that still seem mysterious to you. You are a visitor, free to move at your own pace from space to space.

It’s a an intimate, personal journey, an immersion in a hushed atmosphere, where individual stories and memories combine to create a collective experience.

The installation is open 4 hours each day :

Audience members enter in small groups, for 3 hours

Average length of stay : 60 minutes

Each audience member visits the installation in a specific order and can spend as long as they wish.

Capacity : 110 people, 10 people enter every 15 minutes

Ages 14 and up

Gathering stories

We interviewed people living in various regions in France, inviting them to tell us about themselves, their history, and how the places they have lived have had an effect on who they are. In this way, we sought to understand the forces at work influencing people to move and settle somewhere new, and the how the choice of staying or leaving a territory impacts identity.

Together with our co-producers, we considered the specific features of each of their territories in relation to displaced persons and population movements (historical and contemporary). For certain locations, we determined a precise focus, for example, the stories around the factory in Saint-Auban or the mines in Vieux Condé. Our goal was reach out to different and varied groups of people to collect singular stories from diverse populations, always with the idea of leaving plenty of room for little-heard stories.

Partners

Ministère de la culture et de la communication
- Direction Générale de la Création Artistique (DGCA) – aide nationale à la création arts de la rue
- DRAC PACA

Département des Alpes de Haute-Provence

Région Sud

La Garance, Scène nationale de Cavaillon (84)

Théâtre Durance, Scène Nationale de territoire(s), Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban (04)

Théâtre Joliette,  Scène conventionnée art et création – expressions et écritures contemporaines, Marseille (13)

ECLAT, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Aurillac (15)

Théâtre La Passerelle, Scène Nationale de Gap et des Alpes du Sud (05)

Le Citron Jaune, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Port Saint Louis du Rhône (13)

Le Boulon, Centre National des Arts de la Rue et de l’Espace Public, Vieux-Condé (59)

Pôle arts de la scène, Friche,Belle de Mai, Marseille (13)

Research and international collaboration :

Face Contemporary Theater Fund (USA)

NET TEN – Network of Ensemble Theaters, Travel and Exchange Network (USA)

Lieux publics Centre national des arts de la rue et de l’espace public & pôle européen de production, dans le cadre du programme ὁδός – les chemins, Marseille (13)