From November 14 to 16, 2014, the public from Charleroi and elsewhere was at the centre of LA FORCE DU CHANGEMENT: a dense weekend including performances, discussions, workshops and interventions proposed by about forty contemporary artists and collectives for Charleroi. This Winter School took place in and around three locations in Ville Basse: Passage de la Bourse, a 19th century commercial gallery that will be integrated in the future shopping mall; Le Coliseum, a former discotheque that is now a concert hall; and the entrance to the construction site of the mall. The energy gathered during the weekend took shape in the collective construction of a sculpture on this latter site: an ephemeral sign for and from the inhabitants of Charleroi, defying the ravaged area, the city and the weather.

à;GRUMH // Anna Witt // Annabel Lange // Astrid Seme // [bæk’steɪdʒ] // Baptiste Elbaz // Benoit Félix // Dan Perjovschi // Emmanuel Van der Auwera // Eva Seiler //  Jean-Philippe De Visscher //Johanna Tinzl // Jozef Wouters // Ha Za Vu Zu // Kit Hammonds // Klasse Skulptur und Raum (Hans Schabus) // Konrad Kager // Lia Perjovschi // Lisa Egio & Elliot Kervyn // Manfred Hubmann & Antoine Turillon // The Mental Masonry Lab // FC Jazz // Nicolas Belayew // NO FUTURE Komplex // Oberliht // Paul Hendrikse // The Public School for Architecture // Raumte (Pieter Jennes & Maxime Peeters) // Renzo Martens // Robin Vanbesien // Sandrine Verstraete & Jean de Lacoste // Serge Stephan // Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost // Sophie Thun & Maria Giovanna Drago // Stijn Van Dorpe with Egidio Quelina, Romain Peeters, Filka Sekulova, Florence Scialom a.o. // Thomas Geiger & Pierre Silverberg //  …

The following pictures document all the interventions of the weekend, from Friday  night to Monday morning. 

INSTALLATION OF THE COLLECTIVE SCULPTURE ON THE CONSTRUCTION SITE

Benoit Félix (BE), Le chantier du bord/le bord du chantier
The collective painting of the opening banner

Ha Za Vu Zu (TR), We are not lost but the city
Music performance

Jean de Lacoste & Sandrine Verstraete (BE), Bruise on Silence
Music performance with video

FIRST REVOLUTION OF THE COLLECTIVE SCULPTURE

Raumte (Pieter Jennes & Maxime Peeters, BE)
A mobile motel to represent the mental framework where cooperation can happen

à;GRUMH… (BE)
The revival concert of this cult band from Charleroi, awaited since 23 years…

Annabel Lange (DE)
SUV with all books from Charleroi public librairies starting with “Why…”

Lia Perjovschi (RO), Art (between “Design Your Self” and “Funky Business”)
Workshop and Mind Map

Sophie Thun & Maria Giovanna Drago (PL/IT)
Sound installation inspired from the movie Network

Eva Seiler (AT)
Installation, diverse materials

[PSFA] – The Public School for Architecture Brussels (US/BE)
Outpost in Charleroi, proposing its own program within HOTEL CHARLEROI’s program

[bæk’steɪdʒ] (BE)
Group of Espace Urbain students working on Charleroi through the concept of imagining a “contre-projet”, an answer to an in-situ artwork

Serge Stephan (FR), Lalalost
Press conference and performance about Yogalala, an amateur form of yoga that appeared among the survivors of a plane crash on a desert island

SECOND REVOLUTION OF THE COLLECTIVE SCULPTURE

No Future Komplex (DE), Anti-Fun Parade
A parade along a previously fixed route. The Score: do not actively communicate in any way, do not leave the group

Kit Hammonds (GB), Future Scenarios: A Game – Charleroi Edition
Board game combining elements of Monopoly, ‘spin the bottle’, and trading cards

Klasse Skulptur und Raum (Hans Schabus)(AT), Composition for Tabletennis
Collective negotiation, planning, observation and practice of a Ping Pong table

Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost (BE)
Participative performance based on what Dennis Oppenheim did in 1971 with his son

Renzo Martens (NL), Episode III: Enjoy Poverty
Screening and discussion around the film with Liv Vaisberg and Nicolas Buissart, founders of the Charleroi Adventure project

Jean-Philippe De Visscher (BE)
Passers-by are invited to “purify” the plan of Charleroi by extracting an element they would like to make disappear

Ha Za Vu Zu (TR), We get vocalized
Workshop and performance with singers from Charleroi, making sound with simple vocals for a video

Vladimir Us / Oberliht (MO)
Lecture about enormous shopping mall projects in Eastern Europe

No Future Komplex (DE), No Future Lektüre
Discussion with members of HOTEL CHARLEROI about “What’s the concept of this HOTEL CHARLEROI?”

Johanna Tinzl (AT)
Praying flags for Charleroi with quotes from recent essays about city planning

Stijn van Dorpe with Egidio Quelina & Romain Peeters, Louis Strike, Tao, M.C.G, Bantou, Abbas, Alif, … , Une étagère a livre
Performance with scholars from UT, Charleroi’s technical school, building a bookcase accompanied by the local rapper crew

Emmanuel Van der Auwera (BE), Delta City
Found footage film about Detroit with techno soundtrack

Baptiste Elbaz (FR)
Mobile kitchen proposing free food throughout the weekend

Lisa Egio & Elliot Kervyn (FR/BE), A Pile of Earth
The view, formerly hiden by canvas sheets, is revealed; two stage lights point at a pile of earth

Robin Vanbesien (BE)
Where we all meet, where we are all consumed

Stijn Van Dorpe (BE), Without Growth
Booklet launch and conference on degrowth by the researcher Florence Scialom

Astrid Seme (AT), Une Bruxelloise blonde gagne un poisson / Een Brusselse blonde wint een vis
A series of jokes about these two guys from different cities, told regularly through a doorphone

Thomas Geiger & Pierre Silverberg (DE/BE), SCHSCHCH
Working as shoe shiners in the streets of Charleroi for three days, and glam up the inhabitants of Charleroi

The Mental Masonry Lab (Mira Sanders & Cédric Noël, BE/FR, Game of Stones / Du cortex jaillirent les pierres qui exaltèrent les gravats 
Excavating workshop on the Rive Gauche construction site

Paul Hendrikse (NL), This Liminal Body
Lecture

Konrad Kager (AT), All you can’t eat
Food performance

Benoit Félix  (BE), Je tire un trait, action pour chantier de fin (dessin de gravité)
A line drawn by gravity

THIRD REVOLUTION OF THE COLLECTIVE SCULPTURE (not accomplished)

FC Jazz (BE, Antoine Lissoir – saxophones, clarinet; Augustin Dive – saxophones; Maxime Tirtiaux- guitar; Julien Englebert – drums; Philippe Quewet – bass guitar, double bass)
A collective improvisation on the live broadcasting of Belgium vs Wales, qualifiers game for Euro 2016

EPILOGUE, Monday November 17, 6:30 am

This year’s booklet was an entire bookshop, where you could print and copy the material you were interested in, then take it with you in a ring binder.
Each binder contained some basic infos about the project LA FORCE DU CHANGEMENT, five texts reflecting on the goal and motivation of HOTEL CHARLEROI, and some documents provided by the artists, about Charleroi and their intervention.

LA FORCE DU CHANGEMENT was produced in collaboration with Eden | Centre Culturel Régional de Charleroi, Le Coliseum and Rive Gauche, with the support of  Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Ville de Charleroi and the Austrian Cultural Forum Brussels. We also thank our partners: Librairie Fafouille, Le Vecteur, Incise and Platform 0090.

Photos:  HOTEL CHARLEROI/ Massimo Maieroni