Carta Infinita
Curated by Ekaterina Scherbakova
The Window. Paris, France
October 14th to 19th, 2019.
Curated by Ekaterina Scherbakova
The Window. Paris, France
October 14th to 19th, 2019.
“La Carta Infinita: Rue Gustave Goublier was born out of a collaboration between Catherine Baÿ (The Window), Gemma Milà (Atelier Berger Milà), Julia Borderie, Eloïse Le Gallo and Ekaterina Shcherbakova (Points-Bascule) and Alice Cabaret (The Street Society ). Carta Infinita is a multi semantic concept: it is first of all a platform that brings together several multidisciplinary researchers, covering both the human sciences and the exact sciences, and which serves as a trigger for analysis. It is also a nomadic mapping system that emerges in a specific place at certain times. In addition, Carta Infinita is a research method offering a subjective and diversified look at a given geographical and urban situation: through a psychogeographical exploration of the territory, exchanges with local actors, an analysis of spatial discourse, each participant develops a protocol which will be activated during the restitution of the research and will complete the archives of the project protocols. The first edition of Carta Infinita was held as part of the Venice Architecture Biennale’s Infinite Places exhibition at the French Pavilion in 2018.
The second edition takes place on Rue Gustave Goublier, where the two spaces of The Window are located facing each other. This former Passage de l’Industrie, then street, and currently closed passage for cars in the making, with the garden which will echo the multiculturalism of the district in its center, embodies in a way the mutable relations between the city and the citizen. When it comes to passages, we naturally recall Walter Benjamin and his analysis of urban transformations in Paris, the capital of the 19th century. The passages represent for him intermediaries between the street and the interior; they manifest as phenomena for spatio-temporal exercise, but also aesthetic, political and social. The presence of the passages goes hand in hand with the appearance of the figure of the flâneur, who follows his own experience of the city and is captivated by his individualism.
The research based on the experience of the participants of Carta Infinita carried out through the basic economy of the body thus translates an intertwining of different temporalities, which overflows on the physical and conceptual idea of space, the recto-verso of the constituent elements of the place, including the two spaces of The Window which look at each other, connected by the underground cellar. This second edition embodies a creation of space through a cartography, and represents the space that is being made now, before our eyes.
Grace Denis’ work began as a research in the stores and epiceries of the quartier, walking from The Window to Faubourg St Denis. A survey of ingredients, both the variables and the repetitions, inspired an unraveling of the prominence of preserved and fermented foods in the neighboring markets. The amalgamation of this study implements vegetables and spices from two markets, hybridizing ingredients recommended by the employees of the shops to make a series of pickles. The symbiosis of these elements creates a pungent array of preserved foods, an edible research that explores the street as a potential site of fermentation, in which a multitude of elements collectively entangle and excite.”
- text by Ekaterina Shcherbakova
Carta Infinita is a participatory workshop aimed at unraveling the sensitive ecology of a given territory through multidisciplinary urban exploration. The intention is to develop a new methodology for urban analysis and mapping by combining a broad spectrum of different means of interpretation of space. The participants explore the territory through a social and spatial lens in order to draw a subjective map through various means of representation. Each of them collects sensorial traces which are then transformed into a live and performed cartography open to the public.
The collection of various elements pertaining to the analysis of the neighboring environment will begin at The Window Gallery, Rue Gustave Goublier, before spreading to the territory of the 10th arrondissement. The Rue Gustave Goublier street was first created in 1827 under the name of “Passage of Industry” between Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin. The part between the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin and Boulevard de Strasbourg later became Rue Gustave-Goublier. This change in nomenclature, from passage to street, reveals a change in its infrastructure, architecture, activities, and frequentation. From their different points of view, the participants will reflect on its status and what it reveals about the 10th arrondissement.
In the context of Carta Infinita, Grace Denis presents an edible cartography of the tenth arrondissement that was constructed through a survey of the pickled and fermented foods in the shops of Faubourg St Denis. In resonance with the lineage of participatory action research, the shop owners and employees were invited as co-collaborators in the construction of a series of pickles, which were presented at the exhibition’s opening as a comestible and ephemeral work.
The second edition takes place on Rue Gustave Goublier, where the two spaces of The Window are located facing each other. This former Passage de l’Industrie, then street, and currently closed passage for cars in the making, with the garden which will echo the multiculturalism of the district in its center, embodies in a way the mutable relations between the city and the citizen. When it comes to passages, we naturally recall Walter Benjamin and his analysis of urban transformations in Paris, the capital of the 19th century. The passages represent for him intermediaries between the street and the interior; they manifest as phenomena for spatio-temporal exercise, but also aesthetic, political and social. The presence of the passages goes hand in hand with the appearance of the figure of the flâneur, who follows his own experience of the city and is captivated by his individualism.
The research based on the experience of the participants of Carta Infinita carried out through the basic economy of the body thus translates an intertwining of different temporalities, which overflows on the physical and conceptual idea of space, the recto-verso of the constituent elements of the place, including the two spaces of The Window which look at each other, connected by the underground cellar. This second edition embodies a creation of space through a cartography, and represents the space that is being made now, before our eyes.
Grace Denis’ work began as a research in the stores and epiceries of the quartier, walking from The Window to Faubourg St Denis. A survey of ingredients, both the variables and the repetitions, inspired an unraveling of the prominence of preserved and fermented foods in the neighboring markets. The amalgamation of this study implements vegetables and spices from two markets, hybridizing ingredients recommended by the employees of the shops to make a series of pickles. The symbiosis of these elements creates a pungent array of preserved foods, an edible research that explores the street as a potential site of fermentation, in which a multitude of elements collectively entangle and excite.”
- text by Ekaterina Shcherbakova
Carta Infinita is a participatory workshop aimed at unraveling the sensitive ecology of a given territory through multidisciplinary urban exploration. The intention is to develop a new methodology for urban analysis and mapping by combining a broad spectrum of different means of interpretation of space. The participants explore the territory through a social and spatial lens in order to draw a subjective map through various means of representation. Each of them collects sensorial traces which are then transformed into a live and performed cartography open to the public.
The collection of various elements pertaining to the analysis of the neighboring environment will begin at The Window Gallery, Rue Gustave Goublier, before spreading to the territory of the 10th arrondissement. The Rue Gustave Goublier street was first created in 1827 under the name of “Passage of Industry” between Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin. The part between the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin and Boulevard de Strasbourg later became Rue Gustave-Goublier. This change in nomenclature, from passage to street, reveals a change in its infrastructure, architecture, activities, and frequentation. From their different points of view, the participants will reflect on its status and what it reveals about the 10th arrondissement.
In the context of Carta Infinita, Grace Denis presents an edible cartography of the tenth arrondissement that was constructed through a survey of the pickled and fermented foods in the shops of Faubourg St Denis. In resonance with the lineage of participatory action research, the shop owners and employees were invited as co-collaborators in the construction of a series of pickles, which were presented at the exhibition’s opening as a comestible and ephemeral work.
THE AMALGAMATION OF THIS STUDY IMPLEMENTS VEGETABLES AND SPICES FROM TWO MARKETS, HYBRIDIZING INGREDIENTS RECOMMENDED BY EMPLOYEES OF THE SHOPS TO COLLABORATE ON A SERIES OF PICKLES AND FERMENTS. THE SYMBIOSIS OF THESE ELEMENTS CREATES A PUNGENT ARRAY OF PRESERVED FOODS, AN EDIBLE RESEARCH THAT EXPLORES THE STREET AS A POTENTIAL SITE OF FERMENTATION.THE AMALGAMATION OF THIS STUDY IMPLEMENTS VEGETABLES AND SPICES FROM TWO MARKETS, HYBRIDIZING INGREDIENTS RECOMMENDED BY EMPLOYEES OF THE SHOPS TO COLLABORATE ON A SERIES OF PICKLES AND FERMENTS. THE SYMBIOSIS OF THESE ELEMENTS CREATES A PUNGENT ARRAY OF PRESERVED FOODS, AN EDIBLE RESEARCH THAT EXPLORES THE STREET AS A POTENTIAL SITE OF FERMENTATION.
