Exhibition of photos | French-Polish Project | September-October 2015 | 9-9bis, Oignies

From the 19th until the 11th of last October, the exhibition of photographs resulting from the project “Black Faces of Europe” has been presented in the Machinery Building, within the location of 9-9bis, at Oignies.

More than 100 photos, gathered in 9 setups, offered to the 1600 visitors a trip to the heart of the mining activity in Poland and France, its memory, its landscapes, its fauna and the life of diggers.

It is in the preserved environment of the Machinery Building from 9-9bis that have been presented the works of 7 French and Polish photographers, echoing, thanks to the careful display, the machines, impressive witnesses of the location’s history.

Located at the heart of the Mining Basin of Nord Pas-de-Calais, listed in the UNESCO World Heritage sites, the 9-9bis in Oignies is part of the five big locations of the mining’s memory. It is a symbolic location, since it in Oignies, in 1842, that coal is being discovered; and it is the 21st of December 1990 that the last lump of coal is extracted from the 9-9bis – meaning the definitive end of coal extraction in Nord Pas-de-Calais. Being a natural space, as well as a place of living and exploitation, this former old pit, listed as a Historical Monument, is nowadays being redeployed, following an approach focused on music practices and the valorisation of the mining heritage.

The exhibition “Black Faces of Europe” is the culmination of a project bringing together Histoire de Savoir(s) and 7 French and Polish photographers. Far from being an ordinary photographic order, with the photographer producing all alone his photos, the exhibition represents the outcome of two years of collaborative work, four collective residencies in France and Poland, and of participatory workshops with the local population. The multicultural aspect and human exchanges underlining these collective residencies have boosted creativity, and have highlighted the depth and quality of artistic creation.

The project “Black Faces of Europe” now enters a new phase, with the setup of participatory workshops enabling inhabitants from the mining basin to get back to their mining heritage, through photography. You can discover several examples of photography workshops proposed by downloading the brochure here.

Exhibitions are now available, and we are willing to convey them on the mining basin areas. If you are interested, you can learn more on photographers, their photographic series, as well as on technical sheets from the exhibition by clicking here.

Exhibition | France, Poland | Photography | 2012-2017

After three years of works, the time has come for us to present you the works made by the seven photographers involved in the project “Black Faces of Europe” (Nicolas Leblanc, Boris Rogez, Guillaume Theys, Baltazar Fajto, Darek Fortas, Daniel Dmitriew, Rachel Albaut).

Click here to discover a more detailed version of the project.

The 19^th and the 20^th of September, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., during the European Heritage Days, works of these photographers will be shown. In the preserved environment of the Machinery Building of the 9-9bis cultural location, you will be able to discover a hundred of photographs gathered in ten setups. During this opening weekend, photographers will be there to exchange and discuss their works.

The exhibition will be opened until the 11^th of October. It will be opened to the public for tours the Wednesdays and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Guided tours can be organised from Mondays to Fridays. Reservations have to be made by contacting 9-9bis (03 21 08 08 00 / 9-9bis@agglo-henincarvin.fr).

Click here to discover the content of the exhibition.

Language Exchange Club Lille | English, Español | Meetings | 2010-2015

For 5 years now, the association Histoire de Savoir(s) has been organising language clubs (English and Spanish) on the Lille metropolis, every Wednesday night. Since 2010 it has proven successful, as in general 30 persons come per meeting.

Thanks to the volunteers leading these clubs, everyone can come speak English/Spanish for free. Beyong practicing a foreign language, it enables for Lille inhabitants and foreigners living in Lille to meet, in order to boost intercultural exchanges. These meetings are held in bars in Lille, emphasizing friendliness and mutual help.

We invite you to come discover and celebrate this anniversary with us, the Thursday, 22^nd of October 2015 at 9 p.m. at the After Hours (rue Solférino, Lille). Several animations are scheduled, especially a new language club in French, in ordre to fulfil requests from our foreign regular customers, willing to practice French. We are looking for French volunteers to come speak French with the foreign residents from Lille.

Attending the event is of course free of charge. So what are you waiting for? Come join us!

Join the Facebook group and discover our page Language Exchange Club Lille

For more information on these language clubs, click here

European training | Democracy, Europe, citizenship | April 2015 | Anor

From the 11^th to the 19^th of April 2015, Histoire de Savoir(s) launched a European training (Training Course – Erasmus+ Programme) about participatory democracy, youth’s involvement in the democratic process, and the rise of far-right and far-left movements in Europe. This training gathered thirty participants from all Europe (Austria, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland and Great-Britain).

During seven days, participants could benefit from the different activities prepared by the European team of trainers (Tobias Harbsoe, Sarantis Michalopoulos, Blandine Scrève) about the said topics. Hence, several introductions to the democratic process, to dialogue, to critical thinking and media analysis…have been followed by implementations, reflections, sharing…

The richness of the participants’ group and their involvement in their country for an active democracy, an action in favour of the youth…have transformed this week in a unique experience, filled with passionate discussions about Europe, its democratic system, the rise of extremisms that every country faces at different levels… Facing the success of this training, Histoire de Savoir(s) has decided to launch a new training “Rise Up for Democracy” in the summer of 2016, focusing on training to dialogue and on participatory democracy.

Video workshops and exhibitions | 2015 | Faubourg de Béthune, Lille (59)

In the framework of its action within the neighbourhood of Faubourg de Béthune, the association organises participatory video workshops, willing to lead inhabitants to discover their heritage, their close environment, and let them express themselves creating a short animated movie.

Hence, during April vacations, we worked alongside Claire Jeandroz – videographer of Film des Deux Mains – with a group of twenty people from the neighbourhood, on the making of a short animated movie.

They benefitted from a discovery of the neighbourhood’s history and from a visit to the Departmental Archives of the North, located in Faubourg de Béthune, after which they could make their short movie about how they envisioned their ideal neighbourhood. They used the pixilisation technique by creating decors; by photographing their creations and by writing short poems for the voice-over.

Discover the movie:

This action has been financed by the Fondation SNCF, la politique de la Ville, the neighbourhood’s town hall and the Fond de Participation des Habitants. It has been led with the support of the Social Centre Project and the Departmental Archives.

For more information on our project “Build your Neighbourhood”: click here

Photography workshops | 2015 | Dourges (62)

In the framework of the European project “Black Faces of Europe”, Histoire de Savoir(s) set up participatory workshops aimed at the inhabitants of mining areas. The idea of proposing such workshops is based on the “Black Faces” actors’ conviction to use photography and/or video as pretext, in order to question and accompany inhabitants in the re-discovery of their history, their territory and common heritage. Through a field work adapted to the public, the hosts will create conditions enabling exchanges, and will accompany every participant to question the historical, cultural and natural heritage of their ton through video and/or photography. These workshops have a common goal, that is to say, enabling the inhabitants to take ownership of their close environment, by the means of interactive tools of expression.

It is in this context that we set up, with the History-Geography teacher from the Anne Franck secondary school in Dourges, a two-day photography workshop, aimed at two classes of quatrième. After benefitting from a short training to photography, the classes were split up into two groups, that went to discover their close environment (cite Bruno, cite Noyelle Godault, the 9-9bis and the multimodal hub).

The photo intervention was held by two of the photographers involved in the “Black Faces” project, Nicolas Leblanc and Boris Rogez. It is directly linked to works led in school on the local industrial heritage, especially thanks to a research on their diggers grand-parents.

For more information on the “European Black Faces” project, and the participatory projects, go on the website dedicated to Black Faces: www.gueulesnoires.com

Photo credits: Nicolas Leblanc

Exhibition | 2014 | Faubourg de Béthune, Lille (59)

In the framework of its actions within the neighbourhood of Faubourg de Béthune in Lille, the association co-realised with the Departmental Archives, the neighbourhood’s town hall, and the association La vie de Chantier, an exhibition on the history of the neighbourhood in the 20^th century.

This exhibition gathered source documents and photos from the archives, historical explanations and inhabitants’ testimonies. It has been presented during the European Heritage Days, the 20^th and 21^th of September 2014, and lasted for several weeks.

This exhibition keeps up with the work began since 2013 by Histoire de Savoir(s) on the heritage and the memory of Faubourg de Béthune, which will continue in 2015 – especially with a campaign aimed at collecting private archives as well as testimonies.

Graphic Design: Nicolas Sekulak

Youth Exchange | Photography, graphic design | July 2013

Tuesday, July the 4^th, 3:15a.m. We meet at Lille Europe train station to take the shuttle that will bring us to the airport. We, young people from Lille, age 20 to 28, are about to leave for Wroclaw in Poland, to work on youth exchange project that will last 10 days.

The trip aims at gathering 9 French and 9 Poles in order to work on similarities between the towns of Lille and Wroclaw, them being historical, architectural, or being linked to the cultural dynamism. In order to make parallels between their historical evolution, different visual pedagogical tools will be used, such as graphic arts and photography.

At our arrival after a long day of travelling, we were warmly welcomed by our Polish collaborators in a very nice ecological hostel, located not far from the city centre.

The next day, after the general introductions and several animations enabling to set a dynamic frame, we split up in 3 work groups. Participants embodied historians, graphic designers and photographs.

Since this moment, photographs wen to discover the city to take different snaps of Wroclaw, alongside some of the young Poles. Then their work consisted in juxtaposing their photos with the snaps taken at Lille before the trip, in order to select coherent duos of photos.

The “history” group then zooms in past centuries, thanks to Norman Davies’s Microcosm, in order to explore the past of monuments and of photographed sites, the goal being to expose a relevant comparison of the two metropolises’ evolution the last centuries.

Finally, the graphic designers retrieve all the materials created by the two groups, in order to include them into a beautiful chronological fresco. The latter is used as a reference point for visitors while strolling through the final exhibition, that took place at the end of the trip in the headquarters of the French Alliance in Wroclaw.

If the work has been very fruitful, we still had a chance to enjoy our trip to exchange and share through dinners and intercultural evenings, personally very enriching.

The group will also have a chance to be united again during the second round of exchange, that will take place during fall 2013 in Lille, and which will end by the final exhibition at the Gare Saint Sauveur. The exhibition will be inaugurated by Martine Aubry (Lille’s mayor) the day of the twinning of Lille and Wroclaw’s official signature.

Photo credits: Matthias Crépel

Graphic Design: Nicolas Sekulak