Persister
L'Amicale des Pestes
France
With this program, we will persist to look for restoration and justice as an act of radical love, and persist to try to understand the world in its complexity. Complementing every show, talk or screening, each guest is invited to share a craft, recipe, gardening skill. The angle to deal with geopolitical questions is here the intimate : the workshops and exhibitions will create space to acknowledge how historical political decisions and actions have shaped our relations over a long time, from a continent to another. Arts and crafts are thought here for both confronting and repairing stories.
This program is made up of premiere presentation of works from both young and established artists, activated by craft, cooking and seed exchange workshops, concerts, and the publication of a journal.
“Persister” explores how we inherit from geopolitical conflicts, both at an intimate and political scale, through the lens of the possibility of connection and transformative justice, from complex family trajectories within late USSR, to post-colonial Indonesia and contemporary Reunion Island.
“Persister” etymologically means to keep walking, even as the path becomes rough and unclear. It is here a dynamic: to persist in asking questions, to heal people and soils. It is an impulse for collective persistence in refusing analytical shortcuts, stigmatisations and feelings of helplessness.
This program takes place in the artist-run space, free seed bank and workshop space Les Limbes in Saint-Etienne. The space is run by the association l'Amicale des Pestes, a group of artists and researchers supporting practices that are little welcomed in institutional art spaces, as they are related to popular, feminine, and minorised practices but bear transformative potential.