“[...] most of the islands in the world form archipelagos with others” (Treatise on the Whole-World, 1997). These are the words of Édouard Glissant, the Martinican philosopher, author and poet whose electrifying thinking embraces the diversity of the world. Glissant’s poetry invites us to view the world as a living fabric of infinite worlds, indivisible relationships and compatible differences. This “archipelago thinking” refers to a co-presence of beings and things, and the unpredictable clashes caused by their correlations. These clashes are pure beauty and enable us to “change by exchanging with the other, without becoming lost or denatured.” 

The Cité internationale des arts is made up of a collection of islands, artists, who together shape an ecosystem. A hub of creation where art is considered, discussed, invented and shown, the Cité is home to artistic practices that attest to both shared enrichment and the affirmation of originality. Like this Cité-archipelago, the Open studios: Slower practices event from the Institut français x Cité internationale des arts programme is designed as a source of polysemy and diversity, a space for friction and porosity between the practices of six international artists in residency. Brought together under the title Là où nos mondes se touchent (The place where our worlds meet), the programme attempts to follow Glissant’s example in exploring the encounters, correlations, harmonies and disharmonies between the artists’ eclectic practices and the unpredictable results they produce. 

An archipelago-programme, then, which “rall[ies] coastlines and marr[ies] horizons” (Glissant, 1997) in the present moment, in keeping with the very concept of the artists’ residency, because those who are there today will be elsewhere tomorrow. 

Léna Peyrard 

• Inara Bagirova – Ukraine – Visual arts
• Jasmine Bissete – United States – Cinema
• Mina Bozorgmehr and Hadi Kamali Moghadam – Iran – Multidisciplinary
• Chloe Brenan – Ireland – Visual arts
• Joana Carro – Spain – Literature
• Zohreh Deldadeh – Iran – Art curator and critic
• Yohan Han – South Korea – Visual arts
• Aung Ko – Burma – Visual arts 
• Nge Lay – Burma – Visual arts
• Alexander Morozov – Russia – Visual arts
• Mehdi Ouahmane – Morocco – Visual arts
• Cecilia Porras Saenz – Guatemala – Visual arts
• Matthew Schembri – Malta – Literature
• Ahmed Taigue – Chad – Dance
• Albina Vatikhova – Russia – Dance
• Hinda Weiss – Israel – Visual arts 

• 14 June 2023, from 6 pm to 9 pm
• Cité internationale des arts
• 18 rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris 4th arrondissement 
• Free admission

Léna Peyrard is an independent exhibition curator and art critic. She is currently on a curator’s residency at Artagon Pantin, a member of c|e|a – Association française des commissaires d’exposition and co-director of the independent arts venue Encooore in Biarritz. Having spent several years working in programming at various institutions in Paris (Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo), she is now developing a curatorial practice that explores the way in which art, activism, mutual support, feminist struggles and a closer relationship with the planet might contribute to a greater recognition of care as a way of viewing our relationship with the world.