MONUMENTAL

For several years, visual artist Jocelyn Cottencin has been pursuing a reflection on form, image, sign and space through recurrent themes such as the group and the community. His projects comprise installations, films, graphics, performances and books. Monumental is, logically, a project that shifts borders.

Monumental aims to activate a visual and collective memory stemming from representations of our history, particularly art history, or media and contemporary events.

Monuments, architectures, statues, works of art form the basis of a visual score initially performed by a group of 12 performers and choreographers following well-defined spatial and temporal constraints. Through statuary, architectural heritage and works in the public space, the project shifts the notions of figure, narrative and form by means of this group.

Since 2017 Jocelyn Cottencin has been transmitting this performance to amateurs and/or art students. The first revival took place at the Beaux-arts in Paris with the students of choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh.

Each revival is an opportunity to question the making of forms and images through a context that is specific to each case. A highlight of KANAL-Centre Pompidou’s programme, Monumental is scheduled once again on  27 June, as part of the closing of KANAL BRUT, in the SV0 space with students from ULB and La Cambre.

The different work and manufacturing stages are visible to the public, constituting opportunities to approach the project via the notions of the group, the community, the coalition and the figures they produce.

After a double training in arts and architecture, Jocelyn Cottencin graduated from ENSAD, Paris. For several years he has been reflecting on form, image, sign and space through recurrent themes such as those of the group and the community. His projects comprise installations, films, graphics, performances and books. Close to the choreographic field, he designs scenic devices for choreographers such as Loïc Touzé, Latifa Laâbissi, Alain Michard and recently Olivia Grandville and on a very regular basis with Emmanuelle Huynh.

Echoing his stage performance Monumental, he is pursuing his dialogue with dance by now investing the practice of warm-up. He recently presented Échauffement général at the Centre chorégraphique de Montpellier. The exhibition becomes a hybrid space between documentation and embodiment, and positions the warm-up as a poetic, political and potentially functional material.