Voi[e,x,s]

The Chapelle Charbon site in the north of Paris, purchased from the SNCF (national rail company) by the Ville de Paris,  will be the city’s last major new public park, with no further spaces within the perimeter of the city left for such a development. The work will be at once a record of the site’s acoustic heritage and a way of helping open up a space that has been closed and hidden from sight for many years.

The project has its genesis in Atelier TM, an ongoing series of workshops initiated through collaboration with the Collège d’études mondiales Global Cities chair (supported by the CGET), which included experiments using voice to explore the spatial characteristics of the site. Throughout the design and construction of the new park, the project involves local residents in the creation of sonic material, using their own voices and the particularities of the site both in situ and in local . In 2020, a series of major public performances in the site will debut the live and electro-acoustic composition by Marta Gentilucci with a production led by Cie Manque Pas d’Airs. We then hope to tour the work to new sites. During and after its development, they will transmit sounds and movements born from the site and collected before its redevelopment, make names resonate through it, and mark it as a new public site.

For Theatrum Mundi, the project represents an opportunity to investigate ideas raised within the broader Sonic Urbanism project: What can compositional processes teach us about urban design?: How does architecture shape music?: What role can performance play in the social life of the city? We will reflect on these questions through a series of workshops, seminars, and public events linked to the project.

Visit voiexs.fr for more info

The long-term project enivsages as much the development of new ideas as sensory experiences. The project accompanies the transformation of the site, reaching its apex with the opening of the park in 2020. Across the months, up until summer 2020, public workshops and recordings will be organised, contributing to the creation of a performance work of a new type. In 2020, the final performance will take its full scale and resonate in the immensity of the newly-created space.

For Theatrum Mundi, the project represents an opportunity to investigate ideas raised within the broader Sonic Urbanism project: What can compositional processes teach us about urban design?: How does architecture shape music?: What role can performance play in the social life of the city? We will reflect on these questions through a series of workshops, seminars, and public events linked to the project.