Mémento 2; 1999-2000

In the spirit of a souvenir album or logbook, Mémento was born of the desire to recount and document the experience of the residency. To do this, we asked each artist to provide us with a short text about his or her stay at Est-Nord-Est: impressions, thoughts, working notes. To these texts were added photographs of studios and works taken by the centre’s staff or by the artists themselves. The residency gives a sense of timelessness and offers a space for reflection, research, and production, but also – and no doubt most importantly – for learning, sharing knowledge, and conversing. For two months, artists in residency have to learn about themselves, learn about others, and test their own approaches. It is most often in the intersection of these three types of encounter that the residency plays out, necessarily engendering a change of context.