Frédéric Boyer and Violaine Lochu RAPPELER

The « Poésie Plate-forme » sessions, which will soon have existed for 10 years at Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, are experimental meetings between writers, poets, performers and choreographers, as well as historians, sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers.

Through their works and methods, the affinities at play between art and knowledge are reasserted.

The focus of this meeting, entitled « Remembering », is the interest in Chanson de Roland shared by writer, poet and translator Frédéric Boyer, who has re-translated and commented on its warring, fantastical material (Rappeler Roland, P.O.L, 2013), and performer Violaine Lochu, author of Vestiges de Roncevaux (2013), in which, through a series of linguistic alterations, she “ruins” the text in accelerated archeological time.

Frédéric BOYER

Frédéric Boyer was born March 2, 1961 in Cannes. A former student of the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses, he is a writer, translator and editor. He has authored around thirty books since 1991, all published by P.O.L: novels, essays, poems and translations. He received the 1993 Prix du Livre Inter for his novel Des choses idiotes et douces, and the Prix Jules Janin from the Académie française for his new translation of Saint Augustine’s Confessions (Les Aveux, P.O.L 2008).

He directed the work on a new French translation of the Bible by several contemporary writers (including Olivier Cadiot, Jean Echenoz, Florence Delay, Jacques Roubaud and Valère Novarina), published in 2001 (Bayard).

For years, his work has been combining personal writing with reinterpretations and translations of important old texts.

In 2010, his new French translation of Shakespeare’s Richard II (P.O.L,  2010) was staged by Jean-Baptiste Sastre, featuring Denis Podalydès, in the Cour d’honneur at Palais des Papes during the Avignon Festival, where he himself made his debut as an actor.

In 2012, his first play Phèdre les oiseaux (P.O.L, 2012) was staged at Théâtre de Lorient and at the Centre dramatique nationale in Châteauvallon, featuring Hiam Abbass.

In 2014, his monologue Rappeler Roland and his new translation of Chanson de Roland were performed by Ludovic Lagarde at the Comédie de Reims.

His most recent book is Peut-être pas immortelle (P.O.L, 2018).

In June 2018, he became director of the publisher P.O.L.

Violaine LOCHU

Violaine Lochu’s work is an exploration of language and voice.

In her performances, videos and radio plays, she combines her own vocal research with a free interpretation of various written and oral traditions (like myths, tales and folk songs), theoretical reflections (inspired by such fields as psychoanalysis, linguistics and sociology), and sound material collected during the many meetings to which her practice gives rise. For example, her performance for the project Mémoire Palace is a reinterpretation of the words of 200 people from all walks of life whom she met during her three-month residency at Le 116, an art center in Montreuil. At each of her interventions, Violaine Lochu explores her voice’s full spectrum and all of its possibilities, even the most unexpected, in an attempt to take it beyond the effable.

Born in 1987, Violaine Lochu is a graduate of the ENSAPC (École nationale supérieure d’art de Paris-Cergy) and holds a Master II in visual arts research from Université Rennes 2. Winner of the 2018 AWARE prize and the 2017 performance prize form the Salon de la Jeune Création, she has performed at the Palais de Tokyo (25 ans de D.C.A, 2017), the Parades for FIAC 2017, the Jeu de Paume, the FRAC Champagne-Ardennes, the Kunstverein München in Germany, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and Le 4ème Art (La Voix est Libre festival, 2015)… Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at a number of venues, including the Ferenczy Múzeumi Centrum in Hungary (Reconstructing Eden, 2018), the Bétonsalon art center, the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in Toronto, Canada (Something More Than a Succession of Notes, 2013), as well as during the 2016 Salon de Montrouge and the 2017 Salon de la Jeune Création. Galerie Dohyang Lee in Paris and the Centre d’Art Contemporain Chanot in Clamart recently hosted her solo exhibitions Hypnorama and Hinterland. She has recently completed residencies at the Synagogue de Delme contemporary art center, La Galerie in Noisy-le-Sec, La Box, Le Générateur, the Ricklundgårdens Museum (Sweden) and the Stiftung in Karlsruhe (Germany). Thanks to support from the Centre national des arts plastiques, she is currently conducting research in Lapland.