The University Tertre de Nantes made a call for projects to install public artwork somewhere within the space of the Department of Sociology, Psychology, History, Art History, and Archaeology. Even though the building was undergoing important renovation there was no space designed for simple meetings and gatherings, friendliness and dialogue.

We propose to compose together a universe to live and to share. We want to create dialogue-tables with benches in the center of the campus. These tables will serve as invitations to read; they will be made by students themselves.

Thought as an anthology of transdisciplinary, extracts selected by the students will be used as the basis for a graphic set that constitutes the tabletop. Under our supervision, students will paint some furniture made of ceramics, steel and wood. The resulting works will combine books, discovery, graphics and ceramic painting. A sort of old-fashion cartography with multiple layers of meaning, as it is the case in the history of cartography. Our participative proposal will be made in steps, in collaboration with teachers, researchers, students.

An old-fashioned cartography with multiple meanings, such as in the history of cartography. We will work with teachers, researchers and students to gradually make participatory suggestions.

Steps: Research, express oneself, to bind, to appropriate space.

1. Research: Participants will be invited to select an excerpt from a book that is important to them.
2. Express oneself:  We set-up painting workshops on ceramic tiles, which are shades of blue gray-green, the historical colors of the university. We will invite participants to create an illustration that refers to the subject or the time of their extract or simply to their mood, character, and history.
3. Bind: the texts will be painted  at various positions on the table and in the middle of an imaginary map, which will bond all ideas
4. Appropriate space: The tables will be placed at different sites on the campus, where everyone can sit, read, write, exchange ideas, or eat.

Virginie Levavasseur
Student Union

Université de Nantes – Campus du Tertre
Cellule de la Commande Publique, Pôle immobilier