Residencial Home La Borne
The project of artistic residences for ceramic creation was launched in 2013, at the initiative of the French government, the La Borne Ceramics Association and local authorities, with the aim of creating the momentum to develop and promote La Borne’s ceramics output.
The aim of the residences project is to encourage the sharing of knowledge, experience and techniques, in order to rethink existing categories and traditional hierarchies, particularly between art, design, arts and crafts. It enables artists from all walks of life to come and work together with ceramic artists from the Ceramics Association of La Borne, with the aim of developing projects for the joint creation of works of art. One of the objectives of the production residency bringing together visual artists and ceramic artists is to stimulate new experiments in the medium of ceramics, and to reinvest an existing cultural heritage. This human heritage is represented by artistic work as well as historical heritage, from popular art forms to the creation of sculptures and/or domestic pieces.
From 2013 to 2015, the “Residences of La Borne” scheme was organised in its entirety by the La Borne Ceramics Association in partnership with the Drac Centre-Val de Loire. Since 2016, the La Borne Contemporary Ceramics Centre has been coordinating the “Residences of La Borne” scheme, working in partnership with the Ceramics Association of la Borne Association, the Drac Centre-Val de Loire and, since 2019, with the Bourges National School of Art – Ensa Bourges. Since 2019, the Artistic Director of the Contemporary Ceramics Centre has been responsible for the artistic direction of the “Residences of La Borne” scheme, which forms an integral part of the centre’s programming.
The framework of the partnership with Ensa Bourges invites visual artists to collaborate in a cross-disciplinary educational programme that has been developed around the medium of ceramics/volumes with students and the team of teachers. More specifically, the aim and ambition of this partnership, envisaged as a platform to promote exchange between the Ensa and the Contemporary Ceramics Centre of La Borne, is to encourage creativity in contemporary ceramic across the fields of art and volume, and to develop areas of experimentation and reflection that combine plastic, theoretical and scientific research on ceramics around potential future directions.
This partnership is working to put in place a precursor to an inter-school ceramics research and production platform.
The residences of La Borne are supported by the ‘Communauté de Communes Terres du Haut Berry’, the Centre-Val de Loire Regional Department of Cultural Affairs, the Centre-Val de Loire Region and the Department of Cher.
Artists in residence since 2012
Karine Bonneval, Johan Creten, Mountaincutters, Cécile Noguès, Marie Preston, Zhuo Qi, Bettina Samson, Laure Tixier, Natsuko Uchino, Lucie Pillon, Hélène Bertin, Elsa Sahal, Elena Gileva
The ceramic artists participating in the residence programme since 2012
Eric Astoul, Monique Lacroix, Claudine Monchaussé, Lucien Petit, Charlotte Poulsen, Hervé Rousseau, Georges Sybesma, Dominique Coenen, Jacques Laroussinie, Dalloun, Jeltje Borneman
History of the scheme
Artistic Director of “Artist’s Residences of La Borne” 2012-2018
Sophie Auger Grappin
Biography
Sophie Auger-Grappin holds a degree in Applied Arts from ENSAAMA in Paris. She combines a Master’s degree in Art History and Cultural Management from the École Supérieure d’Art et de Culture (Paris) with a DESS in Cultural Development from the University of Sociology in Rouen applied to research on the specific conditions of the creativity and output of art centres in France. From 2000 to 2001 she was assistant to the head of the Fiacre (Creation Incentive Fund) (Ministry of Culture and Communication), in charge of development projects for exhibitions at the Cneai (National Centre for Publishing and Printed Art) from 2002 to 2006, director of the Micro Onde, Centre d’art de l’Onde in Vélizy-Villacoublay (Paris) from 2008 to 2018, then Artistic Director of the ceramic production residencies project at the Contemporary Ceramics Centre of La Borne (CCCLB). Since 2018, she has been Director of the Centre d’art le Creux de l’enfer in Thiers.
Joint Artistic Director of “Artist’s Residences of La Borne” 2018-2019
Leila Simon
Biography
Alongside her studies in Art History and the History of Architecture, Leïla Simon specialised in contemporary art. She was the coordinator of exhibitions at the National Centre for Plastic Arts in 2008 – 2009, then a gallery assistant, and is now an independent curator and art critic. A keen interest in ceramics led her to direct the Kaolin Post-Graduate Diploma at the National Art School of Limoges and to join Sophie Auger-Grappin as joint artistic director of the Residences of La Borne. She regularly presents her curatorial thinking at the Contemporary Art Space of Les Roches (Eac Les Roches), where she has been joint director since 2011. She is also a member of the editorial team of the journal Possible, which also provides a great opportunity for writing.
Member of the board of directors of c|e|a – French Association of Exhibition Curators. Member of the International Association of Art Critics.
The graphic design for the Residences of La Borne between 2012 and 2018 was designed by Marie Proyart and Jean-Marie Courant
Biography
Marie Proyart and Jean-Marie Courant work primarily in the cultural sphere. They have worked for institutions such as Le Plateau Frac Île-de-France, the Frac Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris, the City of Fashion and Design, the Contemporary Art Centre of l’Onde, La Villa Arson, Béton Salon, the National Centre of Plastic Arts, the Gallery-Art Centre of Noisy-le-Sec, the Creux de l’Enfer as well as regularly collaborating with artists and exhibition curators.
They are noted for their expertise in the areas of publishing and visual design (in particular, they were nominated for the Best Design of the Year 2014 by the Design Museum in London for their visual identity and signage project for the Frac Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur).
They pay great attention to understanding the clients’ needs. They see the design process as a mapping process. Although graphic designers can propose an approach, a preliminary direction, the best projects they have produced have always been based around a close dialogue with their clients.
Reading, in all its forms, is at the centre what they do. Marie Proyart and Jean-Marie Courant like to take care of readers and what is destined for them.
Since 2016, their work bears the name Catalogue Général, which is also the name of the publishing house they founded in 2015.
Since 2019, the “Residences of La Borne” scheme has been incorporated into the programming of the Contemporary Ceramic Centre of La Borne. The artistic direction of the artists in residence is undertaken by Tiphanie Dragaut-Lupescu, the Artistic Director of the Ceramics Centre.
Biography
Tiphanie Dragaut-Lupescu holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Engineering, “The Cultural Project in the Public Space” from the University Panthéon-Sorbonne and a Higher National Diploma in Plastic Studies from the School of Fine Arts in Nantes. She specialises in the programming and analysis of artistic forms that promote knowledge and expertise, design, the decorative arts and, more broadly speaking, arts and crafts.
Since 2019, Tiphanie Dragaut-Lupescu has been Artistic Director of the Contemporary Ceramic Centre of La Borne and in charge of cultural development. She is developing an artistic project based on promoting all contemporary ceramic practices. From 2016 to 2019, she was Manager of the Quadrilatère in Beauvais. She redefined and implemented the institution’s cultural and scientific project. From 2011 to 2013 she was Deputy Director of the CAC Brétigny, an art centre bearing the accreditation of the Ministry of Culture and Communication.