Le Stand de l’office de tourisme

The Installation and performance Le Stand de l’office de tourisme project is an integral part of La Ville Côtière project.

In 2020, realizing that promoting lavillecotiere.fr online is no easy task, I set myself a new goal: to promote La Ville Côtière in person! With this idea in mind, I came up with the idea of a tourist office stand, a physical gateway to the region and a way for me to experiment with the trade fair stand as a storytelling medium.

I conceived this project as a artwork in its own right, a transmedia project that would feed into and complement the wider universe of La Ville Côtière. I see the stand as a bridge between the real and the virtual, a fictional space which, behind its tourist trap decor, betrays its desire to seduce the public. To fuel my project, I first visit the World Tourism Fair in Paris in March 2022, where I identify the forms and vocabulary used by tourist offices to convince visitors to come and stay in their regions. In addition to the mass of goodies collected at the stands, I bring back from this visit a more precise vision of what the tourist office stand could look like.

I imagine then creating a modular and transportable stand that would allow me to promote La Ville Côtière in several locations. I’m thinking of art centers, but also tourism fairs, where I would like to place my stand alongside the very real ones promoting Dubai, Bali, or Mykonos.

At the booth, I plan to offer visitors several publications, such as a travel guide presenting the specific features of this universe and commercial flyers from various businesses in La Ville Côtière. The video Un endroit libre, which sets the tone for the universe, would be shown on a loop on a large screen. A reading area equipped with computers and tablets could also be set up to immerse visitors in lavillecotiere.fr. To this end, QR codes would link the publications to online content.

Finally, I plan to activate the installation occasionally through performances, at vernissages or during events, by taking on the role of an animator, a salesperson with an ambivalent position. Because by seeking to capture the attention of visitors to promote dream vacations on the beaches of La Ville Côtière, I would above all be promoting my own work, conveying my desire and need to make my work visible. Thus, I would enjoy my role as a sandwich board man and the condition of the artist/author who has to juggle the roles of creator and communicator in order to make a place for himself in the art market.