from 15 January to 15 February 2014

La Grande Ourse (The Great Bear) is a research residency, conceived and worked out like a master class. It is offered by three advanced fine-arts schools, the Écoles Nationales Supérieures d’Art of Bourges Cergy, and Dijon, along with the graphic design outpost in Chaumont, and Parc Saint Léger – Center for Contemporary Art.

Three emerging artists from the partnering schools, a theoretician and a graphic designer have been selected for this research residency scheduled for the month of January at the Parc Saint Léger venue. La Grande Ourse aims to reinforce the interactions of art, theory and graphic design research. The residency was planned out in an experimental mode, its goal being to create the conditions for developing personal lines of research in a collaborative environment. It is an effort to bring together in the same space-time of a micro-community people from three distinct disciplines of contemporary artmaking; it extends a logic of breaking down limits that are specific to the field of art in order to foster exchanges in terms of methods, research and production. The aim of La Grande Ourse is to work for the professionalization of young people who are active in the sphere of contemporary art, and to create a common space for thinking about and discussing current art practices.

La Grande Ourse 2014:
Mathieu Arbez (ENSA Dijon)
Hélène Bertin (ENSAPC Cergy)
Christèle Selliez-Vandernotte (ENSA Bourges)
Flora Katz (theoretician)
Martha Salimbeni (graphic designer)

The International Poster and Graphic Design Festival of Chaumont was the chance to celebrate the publication of “La Gamme de Shepard” (Shepard’s Range), a minimalist punk print object. Featuring works and research done by the participants of the 2014 La Grande Ourse residency program, the book is the outcome of their stay at Parc Saint Léger, Center for Contemporary Art, and includes special contributions from Franck Balland and Tristan Garcia.

During the festival’s opening, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 May, La Gamme de Shepard was presented in an environment designed by Martha Salimbeni, Hélène Bertin and Mathieu Arbez-Hermoso during a one-week workshop with a group of art school students. Films by Hélène Bertin, Jessica Warboys and Robert Breer were also screened in a program created by Flora Katz.

In this context, Christèle Selliez-Vandernotte presented L’Astragale Doublée, a project that took shape during her Grande Ourse residency. It was adapted for the Chaumont venue during a workshop.