quoi de neuf, denis

what’s up, Denis? | Chaumont 2oo2 | For the 11th Festival of Graphic Arts devoted

to political and social involvement, a presentation of the urban space by Agrafmobile helped to (re)discover the thinking of the philosopher Denis Diderot, offspring of the region. As the first stone of Malte Martin’s residency in Chaumont, he proposed a selection of words — actually quotations from Diderot — aimed at young people. He photographed them to retain their expressions, at the very moment when they appropriated those texts, at the precise instant when they understood and grasped the line of thought and saw in it real parallels with their lives. As revealed expressions, those faces were set in the heart of Chaumont. Monumental, face by face, in half-portraits or carried by sandwichmen and –women, they moved back and forth, and their skin brightened the walls and skies of their city. At times with cheekiness and complicity, they shared the philosopher’s mask.  “What’s up, Denis ? Faces from here. And not smiles from nowhere, summoning to purchase”. The faces of these young people of Chaumont fill their own city. The public place is reconquered in a space of imagination, belonging to those who live therein… Here the image has an emancipating role. It offers words instead of stifling them… showing us the topicality of Diderot’s issues.