MAINS D'Å’UVRES (SAINT-OUEN / FRANCE) : FORMER SPORTS AND SOCIAL CENTRE OF FERODO-VALEO
Title of project: Heritage and transmission of an industrial history in Saint-Ouen through the case of the parts manufacturer Ferodo/Valeo
Initiating centre: Mains d’Å’uvres
Discipline(s): heritage / architecture / history / video / theatre / education
Artist or association involved in the project : Company "Les Semeurs" (Theatre and dance company), The Archives of Saint-Ouen city, Mediazones (non for profit organisation of movie production) and a primary school of Saint-Ouen
Duration of project: 12 months
Description of project:
Mains d’Å’uvres is settled in the former sports and social Centre of the parts manufacturer Ferodo/Valeo since 1998. The area of Mains d’Oeuvres was the place where Ferodo was created and developed.
Mains d’Å’uvres invited and met one year ago 80 former employees of Ferodo around a lunch in their sports and social Centre where they used to eat, to sport ...They testified about the history of the building and the firm. This meeting was the first step for us to start a large project about heritage and transmission.
Indeed, the project called "Heritage and transmission of an industrial history of Saint-Ouen" link together three axis :
archives and historical search on the Ferodo firm in Saint-Ouen : we are carrying on this intensive work in collaboration with the Archives of the City
life testimony : this part aims to collect the Ferodo former employees testimonies. For this, Mediazones, in charge of the video interviews, relate the living memory of this local industrial history
transmission is the educational phase of the project : we are working with a primary school on a work of an industrial history awareness of the district where the children live ; the idea is to locate the child in the time : the past, the present and the future. From what they will learn, they will be invited to imagine what the building of Mains d’Å’uvres could be reconverted into in 2020. For that, we will organize different artistic workshops in order to offer them to express their imagination through artistic ways : like theatre, dance, drawing...
The last step of this project, to be programmed in june 2003, is an exhibition gathering all the outcomes of this work : archives, photos, plans, children drawing, texts, video of the former employees interviews...This exhibition will be coordinated by a choreographer in residency in Mains d’Oeuvres.