Catherine Barnabé — Writer

As writer in residence, Catherine Barnabé observes the artists’ research and creative process, how they reactivate the archives based on their personal experiences of Laval. Because they are interested in specific documents, she lets their choices guide her while also exploring them for her own reasons. Her residency consists of observing their research to note the differences and similarities in their respective relationships to their sites of interest, which in both cases are quire personal. Inevitably, a dialogue takes place. This form of attention is at the heart of Barnabé’s curatorial and writing practice, and finds expression in observation but also in a kind of co-creative process. Through collective reflection, by multiplying points of view, she can better understand the dynamics of coexistence between people and places.

Barnabé’s interest in art practices that centre on mobility, walking, cartography, and also for the narrative layers of places, notions of site and non-site, certainly influence her way of approaching the artists’ works and her understanding of their chosen documents. During this process, a series of larger questions emerge: how is the gallery space inhabited by its employees, artists, and visitors?

How does one appropriate a space that is both public and constantly changing? How can we feel comfortable there? How does the architecture of a space affect artistic practice? How does a geographic setting influence a space? All of this is layered into an understanding of place made up of material traces, conversations, and experiments with space, as a way to freeze what’s happening in the moment.