caen tours

Seeking public spaces

I stroll through Caen looking for public spaces – places where you feel the pulse of a city, where people linger, sit down, talk, look around… community areas, in a word. Place Saint Sauveur is full… of tightly packed rows of cars. Place du Théâtre is the polar opposite: an empty, flat expanse to cross. A missing square, a missing city. Is it possible to bring this space to life? To give it fresh impetus? To make people want to stop by? It must be possible.
Malte Martin

Malte Martin installed a writing project in three public spaces across the city together with students studying at ESAM Caen art school, from 6 to 10 March 2011. This trilogy investigated the city’s historic public spaces and those of the future: Place Saint Sauveur and Place du Théâtre, as well as the peninsula that is home to ESAM and its future development plans.

In each location, a letter, a word and, finally, a free-flowing text that people walking by will be able to read, investigate and add to, exploring what it means to live in Caen.
The effects of foul weather and the reactions of passersby will form part of the performance. Malte Martin and a team of students from the ESAM Graphic Design course will make adjustments throughout the course of the installation. They will attempt to fill the empty space in Place du Théâtre make pedestrians slow down and have a look, to build a sense of community.