Project Description

The Voi[e.x.s] Chapelle Charbon Project is a site-specific performance work created by the composer Marta Gentilucci, Compagnie Cie Manque Pas d’Airs, and Theatrum Mundi for the opening of the site as a public park.

The Chapelle Charbon is decommissioned coal depot. Between 2018 and 2020, the Paris's City Hall will reconvert the site to create one of the biggest public parks in the city. The idea of the Voi[e,x,s] Chapelle Charbon Project is to accompany the transformation of the site by creating a sonic and physical experience of this public space.

The development phase of the project throughout 2018 and 2019 has been in partnership with the Architect's Collective Taktyk. It involved local residents in a process of sonic creation both on site and in local schools and community centers, aiming to create a new musical heritage from the unique material and spatial conditions of Chapelle Charbon. A small-scale prototype version of the performance has already been carried out in June 2018: Voi[e,x,s] Chapelle Charbon #1.
In October 2019, a second version was performed during the Nuit Blanche in Paris: Voi[e,x,s] Chapelle Charbon #2

The project will culminated in a major premiere at Chapelle Charbon in 2023. Marta Gentilucci received a commission from the French Ministery of Culture (DRAC - Aide à l'écriture d'oeuvre musicale) to compose a new work for the site’s historic rail platform combining an electro-acoustic composition and live musicians, englobing the sonic traces of the site and its transformations. The mise-en-scène by CMPDA, working with both the musicians and a large scale spatial installation, will engage members of the audience in an immersive and active listening experience. 

Theatrum Mundi has facilitated a program of creative and academic workshops throughout: working with residents to find ways to activate the space sonically; with artists to think critically about the implications of approaches to the work; and in public forums debating on the outcomes of the project. TM also conducted a long-term research project on site-specific music based on observation and analysis of the project, publishing written and audio-visual research materials addressing questions relating music, urban space, and society.

Photo A. Lacroix - Chappelle Charbon Station Platform

Photo A. Lacroix - Chappelle Charbon Station Platform

Latest Discussion about/around the “Chappelle Charbon Project”:
Workshop “Site-Specificity and Sonic Urbanism”