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 8 May to 8 December 2024
The space of things
It’s hard to imagine, in these few square metres, the metal-framed beds 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, giving 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 21 September to 8 December 2024
Heritage in motion: building a sustainable future.
The Cité des Électriciens is the tourist gateway to an area that has been recognised as a living, evolving cultural landscape by UNESCO, and is an emblematic everyday monument of the coalfields of northern France.
Rehabilitated by Philippe Prost, Jennifer Didelon and the FORR agency, the oldest colliery in the Pas-de-Calais has been redesigned as a living neighbourhood, combining gardens, exhibition spaces, artists’ residences and gîtes – all spaces that invite us to think differently about how we live in the Cité and the world after coal…
The exhibition showcases the work of student architects from the École de Chaillot in Clermont-de-l’Oise and the surrounding area. It highlights the heritage professions and presents nine exemplary building sites in the Hauts-de-France region.
from 21 September to 8 December 2024
Bio-TEX
The mining basin, a land of innovation! Get a sneak preview of the latest technical advances in insulation by the About A Worker collective.
The exhibition showcases the work done to create hygrothermal curtains for the renovation of mining estates. The project, carried out with the residents of the Cité d’Orient in Harnes, was led by 20 students from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et du Paysage in Lille, with technical support from the About a Worker collective.
This experiment is part of the International Post Mining Network, an association set up in 2022 in the coalfields of northern France, which brings together more than 30 partners from all over the world. It is part of the ‘Mining Towns in Acclimatisation’ initiative.
from 20 September to 8 December 2024
Chromophore
‘En Creux’ is the culmination of the work of the four artists hosted in residence 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.
