Barbara Christol, a visual artist in duo with a choreographer”
Occitanie Artists, article from December 7, 2019.
Choreographer Kirsten Debrock, founder of the KD Danse Company, and visual artist Barbara Christol created a choreographic piece for toddlers in 2018. They are finishing a tour in Hérault at the end of this year before continuing in 2020 with a performance at the Carré D’art in Nîmes as part of “La Nuit de la Lecture,” and a tour in the spring.
Loosely inspired by the album Allez, au Nid! by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey (La Martinière Jeunesse), this piece was created for and with young children during a creative residency at the François Dolto daycare center in Agde (34) between January and June 2018, supported by various institutional partners. The creation offers a poetic interpretation of the bedtime and dream ritual, aimed at young children and their parents, siblings, and bedtime companions. The visual artist creates weavings during the performance.
Since then, the choreographer and visual artist have performed their piece regularly. They are wrapping up a tour at the end of this year as part of the Hérault Departmental Media Library, followed by a performance in Nîmes in 2020 and a tour in the spring.
For several months, the children and parents of the daycare center shared a moment of visual, physical, and sensory development with the visual artist and choreographer. Together, they offered a shared experience with their children, exploring movement, gentleness, touch, space, and trust. This project fueled the research of the two artists, brought together for the first time, allowing them to forge connections between their worlds.
The daily presence of the children, aged 10 months to 3 years, during the creative process allowed us to observe the reactions of the very young audience at each stage of this work, which combines the artist’s wool weaving gesture with the dancer’s body movement.
Barbara Christol also recently signed a collaboration contract with a Madrid gallery, which represented her at the Luxembourg International Contemporary Art Fair (December 5-8).
Barbara Christol is a visual artist born in Nîmes in 1978, who now lives and works between Béziers and Pézenas (34). Her favorite themes are play and space, which she stages with a pronounced taste for the absurd and poetry. A jack-of-all-trades, she practices drawing, painting, illustration, photography, but also playful installations and woven performances. Her work is a questioning of the playful function of Art and the space of creation. She regularly collaborates with artists from other artistic backgrounds.