During the first two weeks of August, Charlotte Bank and Younes Atbane met for an intensive period of exchange and dialogue in the Villa Romana in Florence (Italy). The meeting was part of the “Pas de Deux” project by Alya Sebti and Angelika Stepken, during which an artist from the Southern Mediterranean region and a curator from the Northern or Eastern Mediterranean region met in pairs for two weeks throughout the summer to exchange ideas and develop a project together.
Faced with the city of Florence and its denial of the contemporary together with an interest in new forms of social activism in other cities around the world, we decided to explore different aspects of the notion of “public space”, a concept that seems to be undergoing major changes at present, particularly in the context of the recent uprisings and civil society and resistance movements in the Arab countries, but also in Turkey, Brazil, Europe and the USA.
The theme was approached through talks, texts, photos and fragments of movement and led to tonight’s performance. It is a an experiment and work in progress, to be seen as one possible outcome of the two week’s meeting of Charlotte Bank und Younes Atbane, one step on a road that remains open to take multiple directions in the future.
