Our Deep Forests

Friday 6 April 2018, 6 pm-7.30 pm

Reading course (EEAPS—The Cheapest University)

  • U+1F3DE-000

    National Park

  • 🏞️

    Drawing

  • Paul Otlet

    Black ink

  • Mundaneum

    1935

Before Ahmed Madani’s show F(l)ammes* at Théâtre Brétigny, CAC Brétigny will host a session of “Exploration des Alternatives Arrivantes de Provenance Extra-Solaire,” a course given by Clara Pacotte and Charlotte Houette. The two have invited Josèfa Ntjam, who would like to give a reading of Afro-feminist science fiction texts in conjunction with a film. The reading is called “Nos forêts abyssales” (Our Deep Forests).

EEAPS is a course proposed by The Cheapest University, a free experimental school created by artists. The school seeks to promote collective working conditions enabling it to recruit new members. A contributory art school, the Cheapest University is both activist and direct, i.e., it depends solely on the will and drive of the artists forming the institution, all of whom are volunteers. The school becomes a necessity in their practices by serving as an extension of their personal research or the collective invention of situations that favor the creation of works of art.

Born in Metz (FR) in 1992, lives and works in Paris. In her work, Josèfa Ntjam deconstructs through writing the founding myths of history that seem to drive it, drawing parallels between them and alternative singular stories. Her research points up the troubling zones produced by the excesses of colonization. Post-colonial themes, Afro-futurism, futurists, science fiction, writing, video, and installation allow her to question the production methods of history. Ntjam studied at the École Supérieure d’art et de Design of Amiens (FR) and the Institut des Arts et des Cultures de l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (SN), and is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art of Bourges (FR) and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art of Paris-Cergy (FR). She has been invited to show her work at a number of exhibitions, festivals, and venues, including the Centre d’Art Contemporain of La Chapelle Saint-Jacques (FR) during the international “Let Us Reflect” video festival; the show “Fantôme-s Résistant-e-s” mounted in Paris (FR) by the collective Futurs Antérieurs; the Black(s) To The Future festival, Paris (FR); the exhibition “Pensée du tremblement” at the Grands Voisins; Hasard Ludique for her Medium(s) project; the “Nous ne sommes pas le nombre que nous croyons être” event at the Cité internationale des arts of Paris; and the University of Strasbourg.

*in the history of contemporary immigration in France, they are the great forgotten ones, the spouses, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. With F(l)ammes, the author and stage director Ahmed Madani strives to give them a voice. Following a long selection process, he has chosen nine young women from working-class neighborhoods, daughters of immigrant parents, who have personal experiences and life stories that show a multifaceted reality. Group rate at 12 euros via CAC Brétigny. For further information about Théâtre Brétigny and reservations: contact@theatre-bretigny.fr.

 

Resources