This exhibition at the Mucem is the culmination of a three-year residency by the artist Ilaria Turba at ZEF—scène nationale de Marseille. How did this collaboration come about?

In her work, Ilaria has a very direct relationship with people and objects, which she sees as vectors of memory. This is why, from the outset, the artist suggested that the ZEF link her with the Mucem, given that her way of working was very close to the way the objects in our collections are considered. She therefore spent a lot of time in the Mucem’s storerooms in parallel with the workshops she led at the ZEF. During these three years, she spent several immersion stays with locals of the surrounding areas, as well as others with the collections.

When I arrived in Marseille for this residency, I wanted to acquire concrete experience of the working class “quartiers nord” in the north of the city by exploring them in order to immerse myself in this area. But I also had the idea of continuing my work on the collective imagination and the relationship with memory. I work a lot on the relationship with archives and so I naturally turned to the Mucem, which has an incredible collection. So I “travelled” through the collections of the Centre for Conservation and Resources in parallel with my physical journey in the region. The idea was to link these two exploring journeys and to weave them together at the heart of the same project, linking the past, the present and the future, through the wishes of locals of the “quartiers nord”.

Why did you choose to work on the theme “The desire to look further?

The theme emerged spontaneously. I had already been playing with this idea in my head for some time, but it came to me in a very concrete way again in Marseille. And then it took on another meaning with this health crisis – a period when it has become difficult to project oneself forward...
Etymologically, to desire i.e. to wish means “without a star”, namely to orientate oneself differently, to lose one’s bearings and to open oneself up to the possibility of finding new ones. For me, it also means “trying to project oneself, moving towards common horizons”. But this theme is more a feeling than a definition. It was very much open to interpretation by the project participants. This is what guided my work with the locals: quite straightforwardly, I proposed to them that they imagine their own wishes to look far away.
I also had the idea of working on rituals and celebrations, because in the “quartiers nord” I noticed that there were no common traditions among the different communities living there. I therefore wanted to explore the possibility of creating new forms of encounters by mixing creative work in the public space and festive spaces, and also by drawing on existing popular forms, such as the lottery.

In what way did this residency draw on the collections of the Mucem?

When she visited the Mucem’s reserves, Ilaria quickly became fascinated by its collection of ritual breads. In the past, these loaves were used for festive or religious events; they could be a symbol of fertility at a wedding, or serve as an ex-voto at votive festivals, with the bread offered to a saint to fulfil a wish. They could take various forms, such as a house, an animal, or even a car, to mark the attachment to the item it represented. These ritual breads inspired the artist and guided part of the workshops with the locals in the “Bread of Desire” workshop. Ilaria asked the participants to materialise their wishes in a loaf of bread that took the shape of their wishes. It was therefore a question of materialising the immaterial, progressing from the verb to the thing, by working with bread, as well as by creating graphic works, drawings and photographs during other workshops.

How will the exhibition reflect the participatory dimension of the project?

In several ways. The artist developed her project from a workshop in a small hut in the ZEF—Gare Franche (15th “arrondissement”), which will be returned to the exhibition at the Fort Saint-Jean. It will host mediators who will welcome visitors there and continue to collect their wishes, so that the participatory process will also continue in the exhibition.

Several events will be organised by the ZEF around the exhibition: on the weekend before the opening, the public will be invited to take part in an urban walk from Le Merlan to the Plan d’Aou to explore the area collectively. Ilaria will install some of her productions in the urban space.

Finally, in mid-September, before the exhibition closes, it will also organise “The Lottery of Wishes”. Last July in collaboration with Ettore Tripodi, lucky charms in the form of small metal plates decorated with motifs chosen by the participants were made in the public space after the first lockdown. During the lottery, they will be gathered in a large installation illuminated by small diodes, like a constellation of wishes. The public will have the opportunity to draw one of these plaques and leave with the lucky charm and the corresponding wish.

It is therefore a collective project at every level. Ilaria Turba is nourished by others. She shows the human behind the object. It’s not a question of looking at the object as such, but rather of immersing oneself in a discourse and listening to what it tells us and what it tells us about the person who shaped it. It is also a way of re-approaching the Mucem collection. This is how Ilaria has taken photos of certain objects in the collections – in a very simple way, by introducing a hand next to the object, as if to inject a part of humanity into these objects.

How did you come up with the idea of organising an urban stroll as part of this project?

When I did my first location scouting in the “quartiers nord”, I discovered an area of incredible complexity and richness ... a world where terrible and magnificent things are mixed together, hidden in a beautiful and wild Mediterranean nature. It is very powerful – and much more surprising than the stereotypes found in the media. And then, by collecting the wishes of the locals of these districts, I discovered an incredible human diversity and saw the richness of these areas and of those who live there. I therefore had the idea of revealing, exhibiting and sharing these wishes in the public space, along a route between the ZEF—Gare Franche (15th “arrondissement”) and the ZEF—Merlan (14th “arrondissement”).
The wishes will be made tangible in the form of posters, photos and drawings, inviting a new way of seeing and experiencing these places. With the stroll is the idea of taking one’s time; it is not a time of normal perception, but rather a “slow” time, a human time that allows for giving oneself over to the possibility of discovery. We will thus “go through” the area, as well as the wishes and imaginations of its inhabitants. Finally, the route is the fruit of all my encounters in these districts: NGOs, but also people who will open doors that are normally closed to us.

This exhibition will be presented in two parts – at the Centre for Conservation and Resources and at the Fort Saint-Jean.

E. G.

I.T.

E.G.