aixcentric

This list celebrates some of the ephemeral things that we saw during 2013. It’s an incomplete list, I know, as I spent much time in England and missed lots, the Aix Carnaval for instance which sounded great, plus the Transhumance.

But these things I saw and loved:

• The Dotty Trees, Aix. Totally inspired and literally dotty, these cheered everyone up on the cold days of last January.
• Opening Ceremony, Aix. A solitary tight-rope walker held a crowd completely spell-bound. Afterwards, huge red balloons burst open to release hundreds of little red balloons to the delight of all.
• Tromp-l’Oeil, the Canebiere, Marseille. Wow! This amazing façade made it look as though the Canebiere had been re-routed through the old Stock Exchange.
• Mediterranean exhibitions– there were several, photographic, sociological, artistic, but all with the theme of the links between Mediterranean cultures. It made me appreciate the region as a unity much more and I learned lots.
• Grand Atelier du Midi – the two complementary exhibitions at the Granet in Aix and Longchamps in Marseille showed us how this beautiful region has inspired some of the world’s best-loved artists. Fittingly they included some local painters who held their own in the exalted company! But organisers were disappointed with the final attendance figures: 462,000 instead of the 600,000 expected.
• Monet, Renoir… Chagall. Voyages en Méditerranée at the Carrieres de Lumieres – same theme as the last item but this time the pictures were blown up across the rough walls of the old quarry and accompanied by wonderful music. Renoir’s dancing couples even waltzed out of their frames and across the walls.
• Lunch at Musee Regards de Provence. A personal one, this, but just sitting out on the terrace on the roof of the new museum, looking at the deep blue sea and the newly renovated docks area was such a new pleasure. Incredible that this was a dusty neglected corner of the city until the beginning of the year.
• Photography. Locals were asked, in order to celebrate MP2013, to send in their own photos of the region and of their families and friends. And send them they did, in their thousands. This resulted in some lovely small exhibitions in J1 with memories of days on the beach, family parties, weddings, relatives, fishing trips…and proved yet again that ordinary people can be extraordinary photographers.
• Cézanne the Comic Strip. The pages of a bande-dessinée life of Cézanne were blown up and mounted on big panels which snake around a field in Luynes. Not everyone wants to plough through thick biographies.  This unusual treatment effectively communicates Cézanne’s life, character and artistic style to the students at the nearby school – and anyone else who seeks it out. Quirky.
• Groupe F. Their finale at the Grand Theatre de Provence was amazing, lighting the sky with huge lasers, bursts of flame and superb fireworks.

Low points.

There is obviously a theme in the things I have chosen – they are mainly visual. And that is because virtually everything verbal was in French. That excluded non-French speakers from a raft of activities at the theatre, libraries and cinemas. They missed plays, films, conferences, talks, debates, book-readings – and so on. Of course things were in French – we’re in France. But to reach out and spread the culture of Marseille-Provence, it would have been good to have at least some of the verbal activities in English, Spanish or Italian.