May 2026
Research
Seminar
Centre Pompidou
Research residencies
Rediscovering Raymonde Linossier
Sophie Robert‘s project is to gather, classify, and annotate all the documents in order to publish a volume dedicated to a little-known female figure who moved in circles of writers, musicians, and orientalists, and of whom only one published work survives: the shortest novel in the world, Bibi-la-Bibiste. This book would provide an annotated version of the novel, her other writings (related to her literary pursuits, or her involvement with the Biblioteca school, but also during her career as a lawyer and later as an orientalist), the complete correspondence found with Adrienne Monnier, Sylvia Beach, Léon-Paul Fargue, James Joyce, Francis Poulenc, and others, and a tribute dossier that was never published, but for which Léon-Paul Fargue wrote “Une Violette noire” (A Black Violet).
Armenian Youth: Between Real and Imagined Armenia, Between War and Revolution
Cécile Lefevre’s research project focuses on the aspirations of Armenian youth (young people in Armenia and the diaspora, in a cross-cutting manner) after the 2018 Velvet Revolution. It is based on a collection of individual and group interviews with some thirty young people. The investigation, which began in the post-revolutionary fervor, has evolved due to tragic events, as the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan claimed the lives of over 4,000 young Armenians. Since the fragile ceasefire, Russia’s entry into the war in Ukraine has also occurred, leading to Russians settling in Armenia (significantly changing the situation for young Armenians in the job market and migration prospects), the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, and the diplomatic discussions of summer 2025… All these geopolitical events directly impact young people. The residency will allow for the writing of the first two articles currently in progress, based on this corpus of interviews: one on the concept and diversity of youth engagement in Armenia after the revolution and during a period of latent war, and the other on the reappropriation of Armenian identity by young people in the Armenian diaspora in France. It will also include reflection on a book project. [learn more]
Creation
Author’s residencies
Isabelle Desesquelles
“When I write, I seem to hear another heart beating, its two ventricles: reality and fiction. 1867, one woman photographs another. They are close, just a few steps apart. Close also because the one in front of the lens is the photographer’s niece. Half a century after this photo session, the model’s daughter will write about the photographer. Each, one with images, the other with words, now belongs to eternity, so profoundly have they marked their time and ours. The eye of the first, the voice of the second, managed to make visible what would otherwise have remained invisible. To reveal, that is the essence for them. The first photographed many who belonged to Victorian high society: painters like Watts and several Pre-Raphaelites, poets like Tennyson and Taylor, Longfellow, and Browning, as well as novelists like Trollope, Carlyle, and Lewis Carroll, and also…” Scientists like Herschel and Darwin posed for her. The second wrote about the greatest novelists: Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Katherine Mansfield, the Brontë sisters, Leo Tolstoy, and many others. In turn, she wrote a body of work unlike any other. We seek stories; the story of these two women I wish to tell.” [read more]
Photography prize
Julie Andrea Elie
Her project is drawn to a little-known ancestral tradition: « sea silk». A golden filament used as an anchor for a shell called the Giant Nacre, byssus was woven until the shell was threatened by a parasite and subsequently protected. A mythical material, featured in the works of Homer and Jules Verne, it is now preserved by the last weavers of Sant’Antioco (Sardinia). Between technical skill and a sacred connection to the sea, these women perpetuate a discreet knowledge, deeply rooted in their land.
After documenting the last remaining sanctuaries of the Giant Nacre, Juliette-Andréa Elie wishes to conduct a photographic investigation into these practices and island landscapes, incorporating artistic interventions (embroidery, reliefs), giving space to a necessary imagination. Her « augmented photographs» become acts of reparation, a dialogue between memory and resilience. A quest for coexistence, where the living hybridize, reinventing possible worlds. [read more]