This article is available in French and Spanish.

On May 30, Gigacircus presented the Festival of Hospitality in Villefagnan, bringing to a meaningful close the French hosting phase of the WALC project, Walking Arts & Local Communities. Before the dinner concert held in the village community hall, more than eighty residents took part in an artistic procession conceived and directed by Sylvie Marchand, who shared the following reflections:

“Nothing in this walk is left to chance: not the route, not the invited artists, nor the gestures proposed to participants. This walk is an artistic gesture that anthropologists might describe as a ‘ritual’ because of its unifying role. It seeks to generate a rhythm, a collective movement towards a humanity freed from racism and exclusion.

For the Festival of Hospitality, the residents of Villefagnan are joined by people from Asia (Tibet, Nepal), East Africa (Somalia, Sudan, Yemen), West Africa (Mauritania, Guinea, Mali, Benin), the Middle East (Palestine, Syria), as well as by European artists. For several years, the project Hospitality in Action has sought to create the conditions for encounters between long-term residents and newcomers, weaving connections across languages, cultures and origins, in order to give tangible form to Édouard Glissant’s vision of the ‘Tout-Monde’ (Whole-World).

The Concept

Rather than organising a series of separate walks, each led by an individual artist, I choreograph a single collective journey that brings the whole community together for two hours. I orchestrate the interventions of three invited artists and place them in dialogue with carefully chosen locations in order to create a shared artistic experience.

Choosing the Route

I always begin by selecting the route with great care. A walk is never neutral: it already tells a story. The places we pass through become a score, the inhabitants become performers, and encounters become events that are both unexpected and carefully prepared. I chose a succession of narrow paths, alleyways and passages where encounters could unfold. Turning a corner, Jean Louis tells us the history of the Canton. At the home of Véronique and Jean Carde, walkers find the welcome shade of remarkable vegetation, where refreshments and treats await them while a song is performed. At the corner of Rue de la Chapelière, we enter Jeanne’s garden, where she is painting a landscape at her easel. Further on, we arrive at Lubna’s home behind the temple, where we celebrate the beauty of hospitality.

The Artists

The beat of the drum, the rhythm of bells and the power of song guide the procession. The artists’ interventions compose a polyphony of colours, voices and rhythms. Claudia Urrutia, a Chilean artist, offers us the strength and energy of a voice capable of transcending the suffering of exile. Nene Cambu, beneath an impressive vegetal mask and wearing Rarámuri bells around his ankles, embodies the ritual roots of art, marking out essential rhythms. Sophie Lopez, painter and gardener, pushes a wheelbarrow filled with paper and pencils, gathering along the way the words and emotions of the walkers. Gustavo Álvarez, a Mexican artist connected remotelY through a mobile telephone link, connects us to Mexico. Carried through the airwaves, his voice evoke Tarahumara culture and the Yumari ritual, a ceremony of world renewal that remains a constant source oF inspiration in my artistic practice.

At each stop, Claudia performs a song in resonance with the reality of the place we are passing through: the vitality of life’s cycle, the beauty of encounter, or the celebration of freedom.

The procession ends where it began: around a globe, a steel sphere recovered from a nearby farm, whose roundness was completed by our ingenious craftsman, Jacky Legros. At the end of the journey, participants hang their words and drawings upon it before joining in a dance. Around this reinvented world, each person celebrates, in their own way, the possibility of a shared future.”