Céline Poulin appointed director

The Minister of Culture and President of the Île-de-France Region have approved the appointment of Céline Poulin as Director of the Fonds régional d’art contemporain d’Île-de-France, in full agreement with the Mayor of Paris, on the proposal of Béatrice Lecouturier, president of the Frac Île-de-France and of its board of directors.

Céline Poulin is vice-president of DCA, the French association for the development of contemporary art centres and has been director of the CAC Brétigny since 2016. Her projects for the art centre, as well as her previous programmes and exhibitions, have shown particular emphasis on reception, collaboration, information and communication. At the CAC Brétigny, she implemented a project inspired by popular education theories, based on the uses of the space, including in the artistic programme all the activities of the art centre, from communication to production and mediation. In this context, she invited the graphic artists Charles Mazé & Coline Sunier to a residency, led the group exhibitions The Real Show, Vocales and Desk Set, as well as the first solo exhibitions in France of Liz Magic Laser, Núria Güell, Hélène Bertin and Sara Sadik.

Céline Poulin studied philosophy and is an independent curator and art critic. She was previously off-site curator at Parc Saint-Léger and was guest curator at the DAZ in Berlin in partnership with the Institut français and at the Villa du Parc in Annemasse. Céline Poulin is a co-founding member of the curatorial research collective Le Bureau/, which has held a dozen exhibitions in France and abroad.

Céline Poulin conducts theoretical and practical research on co-creation, social engaged art practices and connections between art and popular education. From 2015 to 2018, she co-directed, with Marie Preston and in collaboration with Stéphanie Airaud, the travelling seminar “Legacies and modalities of co-creation artistic practices”, which gave rise to the publication Co-Creation, published by Empire and the CAC Brétigny. In 2021, the CAC Brétigny and Tombolo Presses published Inventer l’école, penser la co-création by Marie Preston, which she edited with the artist.

Her vision for the Frac Île-de-France called Mille et un plateaux (A Thousand and One Plateaus) is based on several principles that respond to the challenges of today’s world, the necessities of art and the needs of the Ile-de-France region: to give priority to the living, to work in co-creation, to practice horizontality, and to encourage the sharing of knowledge, skills and resources.

To do this, it will be necessary to de-hierarchise the exhibition spaces and the geographical area. The Frac Île-de-France is deployed on various “plateaus”, in Paris, Romainville, high schools and elsewhere in France and internationally. Mille et un plateaux sets out the equality of these exhibition spaces and the desire to diversify the locations even further, including heritage sites.

On the other hand, it is fundamental to put the users of the Frac at the centre of the exhibitions, the creation and the collection. This is why co-creation and direct contact with artists will take precedence, and the collection will open itself to participation, in line with cultural rights and public education.

Lastly, it is vital today to give priority to the living and the common. The exhibition model will evolve to make the Frac Île-de-France a real place of life. Mille et un plateaux will focus above all on meetings, events, amateur practice and support for young artists.

Céline Poulin succeeds Xavier Franceschi, who was director of the Frac Île-de-France for sixteen years and who successfully developed the collection, revitalised the exhibition policy, opened it up to all audiences and asserted its regional roots.

Céline Poulin will take up her position at the Frac Île-de-France at the beginning of May.