from 10 February to 8 December 2024
Kasimir Zgorecki
The Cité des Électriciens was home to many families between 1861 and 2013. In the 1920s and 1930s, many came from Poland to join the ranks of the miners, earning Bruay its nicknames of “Polish Capital” or “Little Polish Rome”. Kasimir Zgorecki was part of this diaspora. Predestined for the mines, he forced fate and became a professional photographer. Based in Rouvroy, his studio was very popular with Poles. His magnificent black and white portraits immortalise the Poles and their traditions.
From Saturday 3 June 2024, as part of the 2023 edition of “Rendez-vous aux jardins” and the UPERNOIR festival
Cosmic Pigeon – Street Art, Live Drawing
With such a name, this third meeting with Philippe Baudelocque promises to be a fine tribute to our pigeon fanciers and to pigeon racing, a popular activity emblematic of the Bassin Minier! The animal and the vegetable, the here, the elsewhere and the cosmos unite before your eyes in this monumental fresco created by the artist for the Cité des Électriciens. Bound together by the almost magical drawing, the artist, the viewers, the environment and the work of art all come together as one.
from 8 May to 8 December 2024
The space of things
It’s hard to imagine, in these few square metres, beds with metal frames placed side by side, the coffee pot on the stove at all hours, the calendar cloth still damp and the boots in the hallway…
Since 2015, Diane Marissal and Jérémie Leblanc-Barbedienne have formed a duo where the literary and artistic influences of one mingle with the advertising culture of the other. As devotees of pure form, they never stop putting life into geometry, offering it purity and impact, contrasts and sparkles. Their works, never totally abstract, find an echo in our intimate and collective memories. Here, their reduced colour palette reveals domestic objects in a new light.
from 03 July to 8 September 2024
Go RC Lens!
“En Creux” is the culmination of the work of the four artists who took up residency at the Cité des Électriciens as part of the photographic commission launched in 2022 to mark the 40th anniversary of the CRP/Centre Régional de la Photographie. For a year, Clément Brugger, Isabella Hin, Hideyuki Ishibashi and Apolline Lamoril explored the area and its memory. Opting for different emblematic aspects of the Bassin Minier, each of them used innovative and experimental forms to explore the history of the area and its people.
