ARTICLE 13 

Compagnie Carabosse – France

Teatro Línea de Sombra (Shadow Line Theater) – México

Article 13

INSTALLATION – SHOW – DOCUMENTARY

Created in 2012

ARTICLE 13 is an artistic and poetical testimonial, a memorial in homage to thousands of migrants who have disappeared. To these anonymous people, lost in their quest for a so-called “better” world, it gives them back a human face, flesh and identity.

ARTICLE 13 evokes a larger historical context through small stories.

This installation-show-documentary evolves progressively and transforms itself incessantly. Through the memorial, the scale of the phenomenon becomes concrete : statistical data, economics, geopolitics, making the missing people real, setting things in place, a mixture of naive art and arte povera. Things with no intrinsic value have a powerful meaning since the migrants, regardless of where they come from,  carry with them the same things: clothes, shoes, headgear, a water container, something to eat and personal effects (a photo, an amulet, a souvenir).    

Across this inhabited installation, spring forth  words, snatches of life, accounts of human beings…

We remember that these migrants, before they became statistics and a number of disappeared reported in the media, or even dangerous suspects…are above all else human beings.

ARTICLE 13 drawing Portraits.

They are born from the desert sands, the bottom of the seas, containers, housing for landing gear, but also from the depths of our towns: faces, names, those, individual or family, stories; lives and dreams for a better world.

ARTICLE 13 takes the form of a vast memorial, unfolding within the town. 

It is inhabited by individuals and constructions, real or imaginary, by tiny details or monumental objects.

At night-fall, the spectators wander freely in the different spaces forming this memorial.

ARTICLE 13 is a vast landscape which develops in different ways during the show.

There is the confrontation and continual play between warm and cold light, between the living and the inert, between the flame symbolizing memory and the fire symbolizing light and life, but also heat, thirst, burning and death.

…the sun attracts, but some burn their wings or  worse…

ARTICLE 13 is performed at night by 20 artists for 2000 spectators who freely explore the 5000 m2 of the setting.

By the Compagnie Carabosse & Teatro Linea de Sombra / France-Mexico

This spectacle was born from a meeting between our two companies.

For more than 20 years, the Compagnie Carabosse has created its Installations of Fire and large-scale Installation-Shows in public spaces.

Teatro Linea de Sombra, after a long career in the world of contemporary theatre, is resolutely turning to street theatre and projects centered around inhabited installations.

One comes from “the North” and the other from “the South”.

One is a group of citizens from Europe, a continent trying to close its borders even further and a continent often rhyming migrations with invasions and migrants with menace.

Citizens of a continent currently building a wall at the Greek frontier.

The others, live in America, in a country where daily violence is gaining ground and in which a large part of the frontier can be described as a wall 750 miles long, made in the USA. A country of departure and transit for thousands of candidates to the American dream.

In this artistic exploration of exodus and its repercussions on the human condition, Compagnie Carabosse and Teatro Linea de Sombra work together to express several disciplines: theatre of the real, plastic installation, arte povera, sociological investigation, naive art, video and documentary, creations in sound and music,

And offer ARTICLE 13

THE ARTICLE 13

Déclaration Universelle des Droits de l’Homme / Article 13 :

1. Toute personne a le droit de circuler librement et de choisir sa résidence à l’intérieur d’un Etat.
2. Toute personne a le droit de quitter tout pays, y compris le sien, et de revenir dans son pays. »

Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos / artículo 13 :

1. Toda persona tiene derecho a circular libremente y elegir su residencia en el territorio de un Estado.
2. Toda persona tiene el derecho a salir de cualquier país, incluso el propio, y a regresar a su país.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights / article 13 :

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

MURS

Sans égards, sans pitié, sans scrupule,  ils ont élevé de hautes murailles autour de moi.

Et maintenant, je ne fais rien ici que me désespérer.

D’un tel destin la pensée m’obsède et me ronge;  car j’avais beaucoup de choses à faire dehors.

Pendant qu’on bâtissait les murs,  ah, que n’ai-je pris garde.

Mais jamais je n’ai entendu le bruit des maçons ni leur voix.

C’est à mon insu qu’ils m’ont enfermé  hors du monde.

 Konstantin Kavafis, 1896.

THE WALL USA / MEXICO

Length: 750 miles

Anti-Immigration Frontier Wall

Surveillance 24/24 hours with all-terrain vehicles, military helicopters and drones

Wall made of concrete, metal, barbed wire and ditching

Wall equipped with: very high intensity lights; movement detectors; surveillance cameras with night vision.

The cost of the wall per mile = 4.4 million $

THE WALL GREECE/TURKEY

Anti-Immigration Frontier Wall, between Europe and Asia along the river Evros

Length of the first stage : 7.5 miles

 Total planned length 129 miles

Construction start date February, 2012

… In 2012 ARTICLE 13 was created  by the Compagnie Carabosse and Teatro Linea de Sombra / France-Mexico.