Making society

The Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is launching the project Faire société (Making society) on Friday June 24 by spotlighting the artistic, social and political engagement of four artists that each occupy an exhibition space: Ângela Ferreira in the explorations space, Wilfrid Almendra in the perspectives space, Ramiro Guerreiro in the experimentations space and Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the indoor performative space.

Curated by: Muriel Enjalran

Ângela Ferreira: Rádio Voz da Liberdade
June 25, 2022 to January 22, 2023
Frac—explorations space
Part of the 2022 France-Portugal Season.

The Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is inaugurating its artistic and cultural project Faire société by inviting artist Ângela Ferreira to present new works linked to historical forms of artistic activism. Ângela Ferreira, a Portuguese-South African artist born in Mozambique, conducts research into the social and political history of territories through the prism of art and architecture; she explores the colonial history of Portugal and reinterprets the play of political influences and interactions between Europe and Africa through composite installations mixing photos, films and sculptures. The exhibition at the Frac pays tribute to the essential role played by radio stations in broadcasting the world’s independence struggles, such as the Portuguese station Rádio Voz da Liberdade, housed by Radio Algeria from 1962 to 1974, until the fall of the dictatorial regime and the New State.

Wilfrid Almendra: Adelaïde
June 25 to October 30, 2022
Frac—perspectives space
In partnership with Fraeme, Friche la Belle de Mai.

The exhibition Adelaïde inaugurates the Frac’s artistic and cultural project Faire société, and opens new “perspectives” on the work of this French-Portuguese artist whose research encourages us to reinvent our modes of production and consumption to recreate something common. The work of Wilfrid Almendra encompasses sculpture and installation, using various materials originating in exchange and recycling, and is inspired by references to the history of art and architecture.

Ramiro Guerreiro: Le Geste de Phyllis
June 25 to September 25, 2022
Frac—experimentations space
In partnership with Paréidolie, salon international du dessin contemporain, Marseille.

In the works he has been developing since the 2000s, Ramiro Guerreiro critically shapes the relation between the body, space, and architecture. He favors in situ installations, and his practice mixes drawing, performance, video, and multiples—with or based on documentary objects. Sometimes assuming an ironic attitude with regard to the surrounding urban reality, his works aim to study other ways of inhabiting and thinking about cities and their constitutive elements. Ramiro Guerreiro empirically explores the way architecture and urban policy condition our ways of seeing, being, and feeling, and seeks to thwart invisible mechanisms of control.

Based on the modernist experiments of the 20th century, how can one conceive of today’s urban planning and architecture? Ramiro’s work enters into dialogue with the Frac space, and is based on the personal account of Phyllis Lambert, who is the founder of the Canadien centre oh architecture and a special observer of several decades of the evolution of architecture and urban policies.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Fireworks (Archives)
June 25 to September 25, 2022
Frac—indoor performative space
In the context of the Grand Arles Express.

The short film Fireworks (Archives), 2014, acquired by the Frac in 2021, is a film installation in which, as is often the case in the Thai filmmaker’s cinema, memory is combined with other ephemeral elements like light and ghostly apparitions.

As a counterpoint to the feature film Cemetery of Splendor, which is tinged with a slow and luminous melancholy, Fireworks (Archives) operates like  a hallucinatory memory machine. The screen is bathed in night; to the sound of pyrotechnic crackling and under flashing lights streams a whole inventory of fantastical sculptures, gigantic animals, hybrid creatures and divinities, hosts of the Sala Keoku park in Nong Khai, north-east Thailand. For the filmmaker, these statues testify to a form of revolt against the country’s long history of oppression: “They commemorate the destruction and liberation of the earth.”

With the support of Camões, Centre culturel portugais à Paris, Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie Franco-Portugaise Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

The Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.