Flouvenirs/Moving Memories

For several years, Pablo Gershanik and Luis Carlos Tovar have focused their artistic and conceptual research in themes such as memory and the reconstruction of stories, the processes of creation of otherness and the way in which personal memories shape collective memory, exile and migration through multidisciplinary approaches such as theatre, performance, expanded photography, installation, and artist books.

They created "Rojos del Sur" (Southern Red’s) an artistic research project that aims to recover, “activate” (intervene aesthetically) and study the manifestations of personal and collective memory linking Europe and Latin America aiming to, through the study archives and testimonies, to formulate a review of established memory.

Flouvenirs/ Moving Memories is, a transdisciplinary research project on the question of the fluidity of memory and its links with the notions of identity and resilience, imagination, metaphor and the fictional spaces of memory.

It is supported by the INSPIRE research project (2020-2024), led by the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO) and funded by the Research Council of Norway. INSPIRE, under the direction of Katarzyna Grabska, social anthropologist and teacher at the University of Neuchâtel, studies the inspiration of the artistic creation of artists who have experiences of political violence, exile and forced migration.

Through this research-creation team, Gershanik, Tovar and Grabska develop two projects: the book by Luis Carlos “El Jardín de mi Padre” (My father's garden) and the model (theatrical and audiovisual installation) by Pablo “Ochenta Balas sobre el Ala” (Eighty Bullets in the Wing).

Throughout 2023, a series of meetings (5) are planned to shape the project. The encounters involve a crossing of creative processes where the graphic and two-dimensional language of photography contained in “El Jardin de mi padre" will migrate to the three-dimensional and narrative language of a model, and the three-dimensional and performative piece “Eighty Bullets in the Wing" will become a book. Each artist will be accompanied by his counterpart in the process of migrating from one language to another through guidelines or obstacles which, like a treasure hunt’s game, will give clues for the elaboration of proposals.

Simultaneously, this research space will be supplemented by the creation of a material designed in the manner of a “6-handed” travel diary making it possible to bear witness to the reflections, exchanges and experiences lived throughout the project.

Flouvenir is based on the interest of creating dialogues with other cultural, social and academic actors. With this in mind, the aim is to forge links with other structures and individuals whose research and questions feel called upon by the spirit of the project.

First creation residency: May 2023 in collaboration with Odradek / Pupella-Noguès, Center for creation, training and development for the arts of puppetry in Quint-Fonsegrives, Occitanie.

Between May 1 and 5, 2023, Flouvenirs (Moving Memories) had its second meeting in Tulouse at the Odradek / Pupella-Noguès “Centre de création, formation et développement pour les arts de la marionnette“.

Luis-Carlos and Pablo met to explore the potential of a creation game , crossing the artistic languages between the two artists, with regular debriefings and observations by the Kasia, the anthropologist. The aesthetics of the author's book created by Luis-Carlos as a visual artist allowed Pablo's theatrical work to go from a scenic device such as the intimate models to a graphic one such as a book. The work focused on the creation of a prototype of the book Eighty Bullets on the Wing as an editorial result of the dialogue and collaboration between both artists. For Luis-Carlos, it was an exploration of a creation of a model as a way of passage to the living arts, with research themes developed by Luis on issues related to the concept of Homeland and identity from archives coming from his country, Colombia.

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