La Friche Belle de Mai. A truly creative, informal yet striking collective art space that provides a playground for artistic inspiration and innovation in varying formats: street art, skateboarders, exhibitions, installations, cuisine, literature, music and arts events to name but a few. Found just behind the infamous Gare St Charles in the quartier of Belle de Mai, as of 1992 this ancient tobacco factory-come-bohemialand for curious minds of all ages has been on a mission to become Marseille’s leading pioneer of the contemporary arts. A quartier much reminiscent of certain areas in London – Hackney, Deptford, Wapping – where budding, bright artists manage to christen a once run down, anonymous area into what will surely be the next cool kid scene. An open art space that houses over 70 residents (this includes artists, producers, radio djs…) caters for the development and structure of the progressive contemporary culture scene In Marseille’s 2013 European Capital of Culture programme.
Walk into the billeterie and you will find La Salle des Machines (suitably named the Engine Room), a book shop dedicated to various forms of contemporary art and literature, photography, dance, theatre, gastronomy, graphic design, architecture and urban culture. This informal library offers a taste of meetings, workshops and lectures open to the public for free all year round and happens to be an extended arm of three of Marseille’s biggest contemporary book stores: L’Histoire de l’œil, Maupetit- Actes Sud et L’Odeur du temps. A reader’s dream. One of the few bookshopsIi have found in Marseille where I am quickly sucked into page turning-author stalking.
Ici, Ailleurs (Here, Elsewhere) is the opening exhibition on the center’s exhibition agenda for 2013. Featuring contemporary artists from both sides of the Mediterranean, the work showcased has no rule or regulation; instead this is an exhibition that focuses on the nomadic experience and journal of travel that many contemporary artists demonstrate in their work. Here lies an existential experiment come creative space where a world of varying cultures and globalisation calls into play our identity and how it is constantly changing through contact with the world and it’s diverse cultures. 39 artists provoke our ideas on multi-faceted identity and the ability to reflect critically on the state of the modern world with works anchored in social, political and geographical reality. Encounters with the Mediterranean landscape and history, colonisation, emigration, exile, uprootedness and both social and personal notions of identity are nicely arranged through a series of photography installations, letters and architecture, sculpture, metal work, carpentry, painting, textiles and short films.The exhibition lies across four floors of an old tobacco factory, providing a spacious and at times bare but suitably fitting canvas for modern art. Your visual senses are given short breathers in between the next big idea as you stroll along a bare, high ceiling corridor or up the naked grated staircase to the next level. Think car park warehouse with spurts of colour and objectivity. The Panorama on the roof top hosts a collection of various pieces of sculpture culminating in the end of the exhibition, whilst at the same time allowing you to gaze upon the Marseillaise skyline and horizon of the sea: the path to what was once the colonial world and transport network to foreign frontiers.
La Friche certainly has its finger on the pulse when it comes to the development of cultural and artistic expression in Marseille. The site’s restaurant Les Grandes Tables is a quirky environment of turned over speaker boxes, wooden tables and metal and foil sculpture light hangings with large, looming factory windows overlooking the graffiti spurred Skate Park and the haunting rail tracks of Gare St Charles. This could make for a seriously niche event set up and night scene. Whilst there is Le Cabaret Aleatoire at La Friche, which often holds night long soirees with musical players such as Max Cooper, a tribute to J Dilla and funk music, Kendrick Lamar amongst others, it isn’t, in my opinion, exploited enough for its underground character and party capacity. Nor, as I have heard, organised in a way that would render it an unbeatable venue for al kinds of musical events and possibly festivals. Néonmoins, it is certainly an indicator of Marseille’s potential. Watch this space.
fisforfrance. 