During my 5 week residence at the Lycée Georges Pompidou, I ran a workshop for over a week on site. Emptied a classroom, filled it again with randomly placed tables, painting equipment, a thermos of hot tea and put on some music. Slowly but surely the students came in to simply natter, work and or just take five from their busy routines. One highlight was a visit by the renowned historian, Annette Wieviorka (wearing a red raincoat in snap with me) who had been invited by the Lycee in conjunction with my residence on Memory. Annette Wieviorka is a French historian and a specialist in the Holocaust and the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century. She loved the work we were doing and I feel it struck some chords with her personally as she observed the young students sharing their own family albums.
The idea behind the workshop was to encourage the students to delve into the personal worlds at home – to discuss with relatives their pasts through photos and objects. These photos they then brought in and interpeted them with paintings onto porcelain, a technique I’ve been using since 2014. After a simple demo and clear instructions that I wasn’t looking for detail but more suggestive imagery possibly evoking memory itself, the students produced over 50 pieces. The results were then kept for the final show we put on together called Living Room. See Living Room in projects 2020.

With many thanks to Lycée Georges Pompidou, DRAC, Agora Theatre Le Cres, Academie Montpellier and La Region Occitanie for the funding

For more in depth information on the residence in  french or english