Cléa Coudsi et Éric Herbin
AMPAVE
2018 – on going
The commission
In 2018, the Association Mémoire Patrimoine et Activités de la Voie d'Eau (AMPAVE) (Heritage association linked to the working boat profession) wanted to initiate a commission as part of its activities to raise awareness of the ecological challenges of waterway transport.
Much more than a profession, inland waterway transport dictates an unusual rhythm of working life along the water. Today, this way of life is in a state of flux, with the increasing globalisation of waterway transport and the arrival of the Seine-Nord Europe canal, and needs to be documented.
AMPAVE has two main activities: collecting archives relating to inland waterway transport and passing on knowledge about this profession. The members of the association, which is based in premises opposite the water station in the Dorignies district of Douai, want to encourage the younger generation to take up the craft of inland waterway transport, a relevant and virtuous means of transport for dealing with the current environmental crisis, but also with a way of life that is under threat. The commission was to convey the 'life of the boat' in a sensitive way, keeping alive the memory of the past in order to plan for the future.
The artwork
After spending some time on board a barge with commissioners, Cléa Coudsi and Éric Herbin came up with a three-part work: an installation, a film and a book.The installation consists of six polished stainless-steel panels. Photographs of landscapes are used to cut out models of barges, elements to be ‘torn’, folded, assembled and worked on so that they can become boats. The form evokes both the “tearing up” or scrapping of a barge, and the passion for model making shared by many boatmen. The film highlights the unique way in which boatmen look at the environment. Finally, in response to the demand for an educational tool, the duo produced an artist's book with photographs of the commission printed on detachable elements that can be used as part of workshops to build a model barge.
The artists
Graduates of Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Cléa Coudsi and Eric Herbin have worked together since 2002 in Lille.
They 'tinker' with the relationship between voices (and the stories they tell), places, phenomena and materials. The form that these materials take, the use to which they are put and the functions that they find for them preside over the design and construction of technical arrangements. The devices they create, which are often complex, have many margins of indeterminacy, leaving the artists unable to control the process and 'exposing' them to the unknown of what will be revealed by the very movement of a reality that escapes them.






Commissioners: members of the AMPAVE association (Association Mémoire Patrimoine et Activités de la Voie d'Eau), Fabienne Choeur, chairperson, retired from the French Navigation Services ; Bernard Choeur, André Dubuc, Daniel Vandenhoecq, Jean-Pierre Christeans, retired boatman, Bénédict Dogimont, treasurer, retired Renault worker, from a boatman's family; Fabien Drinal, Renault worker
Artist(s): https://cleacoudsi-ericherbin.com/
Place: Douai (59)
Partners: Fondation de France, City of Douai