New PHACS Collaboration: A participatory research-creation project on the history of a former prison

New PHACS Collaboration in Rennes, France

The Public History as a New Citizen Science of the Past (PHACS) project has the pleasure to announce a new collaboration with the historians of the association Cartier Libre (Gaïd Andro and Fanny Le Bonhomme) and the directors of the theatre company La Morsure (Christophe Lecheviller and Marie Parent) on a participatory research-creation project.

This research project is rooted in a specific context: the redevelopment of the Jacques-Cartier prison (closed in 2010, purchased by Rennes Métropole in 2021, and currently undergoing a participatory urban planning process). As a continuation of an oral investigation into this prison, the historians of Cartier Libre invited the directors of the company La Morsure to collaboratively develop a research protocol aimed at bringing together theatre and history in order to uncover other stories of confinement. The project includes theatre improvisation workshops, which bring together a group of participants (prison wards, former inmates, social workers, teachers, neighbors), all of whom share personal experience with the Jacques-Cartier prison. These workshops are a trademark of how artistic creation can highlight the multiplicity of narratives. This methodological approach to shared authority is putting together the historians’ work on the prison with that of  the theater participants.

The collaboration with PHACS will include workshops (on shared authority, conflicting narratives, oral history etc) , publications and public performances that question how artistic creation and public history can help approach such a sensitive and political history.

To learn more about this collaboration and to follow the upcoming events: