excerpt
Introduction
(p. 14)
Since the first investigations
carried out in 1804 by the
Académie Celtique, whose
job it was to collect the traditions,
customs and languages,
followed by the introduction
of the term folklore by
William Thoms in 1846, the
notion of folklore has always
constituted an alternative to central power, and
has always been associated with the definition
of local identities. It is the setting for a symbolic
confrontation: popular knowledge versus the
knowledge of an elite eager to preserve the notion
of universalism. For this reason the exhibition
deliberately reflects a change in civilization
where the rules of the old division between
“dominant culture” and “counter-cultures” has
evolved: working as a network within a global
system, current folklore-related practices in the
field of art proceed by appropriation and transformation,
delocalization and relocalization,
intermingling and recycling.
Insiders are members of a small group of people
who share knowledge that is protected by
precise codes of transmission. Unlike the expert,
whose position is more remote, insiders have
in their hands the raw materials of the cultural
context to which they belong and which they
can legitimately observe or represent. The
circulation and transformation of these forms
of knowledge are part and parcel of what this
exhibition sets out to present.
In order to understand these approaches, the
overall method of the Insiders project is based
on the principle of on-the-spot investigation,
after the manner of the early folklorists who
worked in their own particular areas using
techniques of observation and inventory. To
bring this method of investigation up to date, a
number of “observer/participants” (artists, curators,
collectors, collectives and so on) in various parts of the world have been asked to share
their experiences.
We have chosen to address each of the selected
projects from the point of view of their methods,
approaches and expertise, providing an inventory
of the types of action they involve: amplification
(augmenting, adding on, etc), bricolage
(do-it-yourself, dismantling and reassembly,
transforming, adapting, developing, etc), celebrating
(commemorating, parading, initiation,
etc), exchange (borrowing, swapping, recycling,
repurposing, etc), collecting (accumulating,
piling up, archiving, etc), playing (competing,
participating, challenging, etc), revising (reconstituting,
replaying, imitating, copying, reconnecting,
etc), transmission (sharing immaterial
knowledge, cultural codes, codes of identity,
etc). All these actions are linked by a common
theme – that of “collection” – which has key
importance in the framework of Insiders. This
theme – which subsumes notions of selecting,
bringing together, highlighting and preserving
items within a whole – forms a common thread
in folkloric, artistic, anthropological and museographic
processes. All the propositions selected
for the exhibition involve the idea of collecting
objects, information, singular events and minor
stories, whose modes of transmission might include
raw archives, documentary films, themed
museum displays, storytelling and performance.
As these modes of expression are so very diverse,
the exhibition avoids a synthetic approach,
attempting a more disparate form
somewhere between order and chaos, akin to a
choral recitative.
Charlotte Laubard, Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Émilie Renard
curators for the CAPC
Christophe Kihm, scientific adviser
