For 5 years, the association Les Têtes de l'Art through its participatory television project, Boulègue, is present in the territory of Bel Horizon – a huge building in the third district of Marseille –, through artistic workshops with the inhabitants (video, photo, writing, music, dance, performance...). The traces of our actions and the history of the building and its inhabitants are now visible in a webdocumentary designed by Boulegue.

 

From a stylized image of the Bel Horizon tower, the content of the Webdoc is a series of portraits which come to life by clicking on the different windows of the tower and other surrounding elements. Each window is the gateway to the intimacy of a family in the form of filmed portraits that address the crucial topics of the tower and its inhabitants: living together, renovating makes possible, the possible conflicts within the co-ownership, the challenges raised during the last years. But also the story of the tower and its architect, dreams for the future, children and teens who speak ... This Web documentary aims to enhance the history and memory of the neighbourhood, the building and the people who live there.

Our artistic participative actions started in parallel with the mobilization of the co-ownership of Bel Horizon building on the program of major rehabilitation and security work on the building.
Today the Bel Horizon apartments are occupied by a majority of tenants and are in a state often very degraded. The tower, threatened to be classified in danger ridge, works were engaged for security reasons by purging the facades and upgrading the emergency bridges. Bel Horizon is registered in the program of the National Policy of rehabilitation of condominiums, signed by the Prime Minister in 2015 and actualised in 2018. But the program study on the renovation of the tower entrusted to Euroméditerranée is still not officially published.

Transforming the tower and its perception into the collective imagination is the goal of our actions. Create links between inhabitants and all together, with the mobilization of a network of partners, become a force participating in the improvement of life in this tower situated at the entrance of the city.

In the specific context of Marseille about urban renovation – where 3 buildings collapsed in novembre 2019 in the city center – this experience of this "community" can be seen at a real and symbolic level at the same time. We are now working on this link with the rest of the city, with the help of a network of local partners and specially the association "Un centre-ville pour tous".

 

This year we decided to work on a new project in collaboration with the biennal of contemporary art Manifesta & Les parallèles du Sud.

Through his artistic proposal  The Relay, the performer, researcher and philosopher Cyril Jarton proposes a symbolic action in the form of COURSES, to embody this particular and always to reweave link with the city.

 

A link both to through TIME, contained in an OBJECT bearing traces of previous performative and relational actions (collection of dance, music and laughs by the French-Brazilian performer Tania Alice, using a deck of cards, or traces of the action letter boxes, by the French-Moroccan performer Aziz Boumediene).

And a link through SPACE, by a GESTURE of transmission, from peer to peer, from inhabitant to inhabitant, in concentric circles around the tower, also associating students from the Art School of Avignon where the artist conducts a PhD in artistic performance.