April 23, 2019

European Heritage Days 2019 - CNES’s Observatoire de l’Espace cultural arm partners with ECPAD on call for audiovisual creation projects

Since its inception in 2000, CNES’s Observatoire de l’Espace has founded its actions on the idea that the archive record of the space adventure constitutes a rich source of material for artistic and literary creation. Since 2018, the agency’s cultural arm has focused its attention on research, space infrastructures and territories. Today it is launching in partnership with the ECPAD defence communication and audiovisual production agency a call for audiovisual creation projects using archive and heritage material related to the history of the places that have marked the French space programme from 1947 to the present day. Projects must be sent to the Observatoire de l’Espace du CNES before 27 May. The call for projects can be downloaded from the official websites of the Observatoire de l’Espace, ECPAD or CNAP, the national plastic arts centre.

Gérard Azoulay, the head of CNES’s Observatoire de l’Espace, commented: “The winning project will seek to enquire through archive material how human societies have organized themselves to conceive, construct and deploy terrestrial infrastructures to explore, study and access space.”

The artistic residency will run from June to September at ECPAD in Ivry-sur-Seine outside Paris. ECPAD will provide guidance in seeking funds to help the artist create a work reflecting a dynamic, an aesthetic or a perception relating to the history of the places that have shaped the French space adventure.

The winning audiovisual creation will be on show at the Observatoire de l’Espace on the occasion of the European Heritage Days 2019 at CNES’s Head Office in Paris on 21 and 22 September.

After this first public presentation, the work will join the Observatoire de l’Espace’s contemporary art collection at the FRAC Occitanie regional contemporary art fund gallery at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse.

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PRESS CONTACTS

CNES Observatoire de l’Espace
Amand Berteigne & Co - Amand Berteigne
+33 (0)6 84 28 80 65 / amand.berteigne@orange.fr

CNES
Raphaël Sart
+33 (0)1 44 76 74 51 / raphael.sart@cnes.fr

ECPAD
Communications office
+33 (0)1 49 60 58 68 / communication@ecpad.fr

Commissioners of the call for projects

CNES’s Observatoire de l'Espace
Convinced that the space adventure spurred major cultural transformations in the 20th century and that the space dream has proved a powerful inspiration for change, CNES’s cultural arm is reaffirming its vocation to forge new ties between culture and space. To this end, it strives to analyse and exhibit the place that space occupies in our history, our representations and our imagination. It makes available the results of its research in the form of material for artists and authors, encouraging them to invent creations inspired by the specific challenges of space, such as its effects on the human body, telecommunications or independence and sovereignty. Space is thus a strong stimulus for the imagination and a source of new stories.

ECPAD
The ECPAD defence communication and audiovisual production agency is a leading audiovisual archive and production centre staffed by military and civil professionals and recognized by its partners in the defence and media production communities. It is the custodian of an exceptional record of more than 12 million stills and 31,000 films, and a real-time witness to operations in which France’s armed forces are engaged in all theatres. As a conveyor of remembrance through the military’s audiovisual archives, it contributes to the (co)production of films, (co)publishing of books and puts on or takes part in exhibitions. It is involved in education and research with schools, students and teachers, providing training through the EMI media production school. ECPAD’s archives are a rich and diverse repository of photographic and audiovisual resources.