with Julien Lelièvre & Paatrice Marchand

Audience: Around thirty children aged seven to eleven

Location: Clères municipal leisure centre

Duration: Thirty-five hours of workshops

After a presentation of the project and the artists, and a few group games to help them get used to drawing, the children put on their boots and explored the wetland not far from the leisure centre. In groups of two, they took photographs of the landscape, the watercourse and the local flora and fauna – virtually on their own. The next day, their images were printed out so that they could draw on the prints with white felt-tip pens: pirate ships in the stream, crocodiles basking in the grass and a hut turned into a strange giraffe. Once the children had grasped the potential for hijacking the environment, they went back to the wetland, this time equipped with paint, brushes and a sheet of Plexiglas. In situ, they drew motifs to superimpose on reality and photographed the whole. On the final day, the children produced silkscreen prints, retouched their photographs one last time and hung them in the reception area of the leisure centre. The sheer number of images meant that they had to select and sort the ones they wanted to show, but they also had to take up a second wall!

At the end this week’s workshops, a temporary exhibition was put together using the children’s work. The inauguration took place on Friday 21 July before the end of the afternoon, giving the children the opportunity to show their work to their parents after the week’s workshops. A book is currently being produced.

Programme: “Culture comes alive in Normandy” from the Normandy Regional Department of Cultural Affairs