Manifesta 13 Marseille

PLACE DES INVESTIS

The neighbourhood of Belsunce was once a “reference” of North-African tourism and was built in a part of the city which is secularly favourable to the installation of foreign entrepreneurs and has its own informal trade network. President of the Comité d’Intérêt du Quartier Cadunab (CIQ –neighbourhood assembly) and of the Association des Commerçants et Artisans de Belsunce (ACAM – association of shopkeepers and craftsmen), Ali Timizar himself embodies the living memory of the place and never loses sight of his concern for socially enhancing this “forgotten” mixed neighbourhood. Ali Timizar and the Director of the ACAM Belsunce, Thérèse Basse, have also initiated a project which aims at rehabilitating the neglected square and opposing a controversial development proposal planned on the place Fare Petites Maries in the centre of Belsunce. After having organised a referendum on the suggested project, they initiated a citizens’ consultation in order to reorganise the project according to their requirements. The final project was completed and inaugurated in 2018, renamed by those who live on the square: it is now officially “Square Louise Michel” to commemorate the important figure of the Paris commune. Symbolically, the choice of Louise Michel also opens discussion on the place granted to women in the public sphere in the city centre of Marseille.

Used to working from informal archives, artist Olivier Hilaire was invited by the Tiers Programme team to collaborate with the CIQ Cadunab and the ACAM de Belsunce on the creation and production of the first exhibition sequence of Archives Invisibles. To get a better idea of the genealogy of the civic mobilisation around Square Louise Michel, Olivier and Ali Timizar analysed the associations’ archives which are housed in Café Louise Michel. In addition to regular meetings with members of both associations, the artist completed his research by calling on important players in the memory of the square, such as the teams of the Théâtre de l’Œuvre and Pascal Messaoudi, a sound collector and Bruno Le Dantec, author, for their work “Comptoir des sons” (The sound counter).

ACAM – TRADERS AND CRAFTMEN ASSOCIATION OF BELSUNCE

The members of the CIQ Cadunab (Canebière-Dugommier-National-Belsunce) live in the 1st arrondissement of Marseille and work together to improve the living conditions in their perimeter. ACAM Belsunce is an association which groups together shopkeepers and craftsmen of the neighbourhood of Belsunce.

Olivier Hilaire

A French visual artist and iconographer, Olivier Hilaire was born in Nîmes in 1979. Following his studies at the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, he worked as a consultant and art director, before resuming his own work. Revolving around memory and history, his creations revisit events through a narrative weaving of hand-written and iconographic archives. Scenography is central to his work. It enables him to multiply the levels of interpretation by building bridges between the private and the collective, the present and the past, the story being told and the observer. The same photos can testify to a personal experience and at the same time be perceived as a collective iconography, and become a medium for the projection of the memories of all.

The project entitled The True Truth’s Stories that he co-produces with Isabelle Blanc was nominated in 2016 for the Prix Elysée du Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne.