La Grande lessive ®  What is at stake ?

La Grande lessive ®  in an ephemeral, one day, art event.

La Grande lessive ® was born from the idea of hanging out the clothes after washing thus opening the way to a new approach to art exhibition.

It can be conceived to gather together in one and a single place works, and consequently any idea about those works, of a « family » whose « links » had so far been overlooked.

La Grande lessive ®  as an art event, aims at highlighting individuals and their names at the back of each work as well as confronting the works to the « family » where they belong, so long as it is developped over the full span of a territory.

So, again and again, even throughout its smallest occurrences, La Grande lessive ® grows into a specific art phenomenon, which is conceived as a means to tighten social links and trigger an interest and a desire to create art.

Instruction for use

1.Twice a year, ropes are to be strechtched accross places where visitors are welcome : from schools, art schools, art centers and museums, townhalls, mediatheques, libraries, hospitals, retired people homes, holiday activity centers, post offices, ordinary buildings, shopping malls, companies, and local associations.

2.Each participant or each group has to fill an application form online. Each specific institution or group of applicant should make announcements in their own neighbourhood and organize La Grande lessive ®. According to the regulations notified on the website, so as to make it clear what their aim consists in and where this event is to be held.

3.On the day of the event, participants and any person sharing in La Grande lessive ® are asked to hang out any production of their own, be-dimensionnal (and A4) with clothes pegs, wooden ones if possible. Drawings, paintings, collages, photomontages, photographs, visual verse… are thus to be exhibited for a whole day.

Whenever the exhibition is to be held outdoors all items should be protected from the rain in transparent documents holders of the same size (A4).

4.No professional skills are required ! One mainly has to deem something he has achieved is worthwhile, and deserves been shown in this art event. Yet, each person wanting to join in this event should produce his/her own work. Any collective exhibition can consist in two or three works, as well as tens or hundreds of them.

5.Should schools be concerned, La Grande lessive ® aims at collecting works made by pupils, parents, teachers, and other members of the staff, whatever  the age or position in the group. In this case, the works made by the pupils will not be elaborated within class groups. Yet workshops can be organized to help the conception and gather the participants in friendly activities.

6.Each participant is allowed one work only. Make sure the name and surname of the author be inscribed at the back of the work.

7.The ropes holding the works should vary in height according to the height of the participants who have to be able to look, hang out or hang down their productions. The author chooses the place where he wants his work to be shown – in no way is he allowed to remove another person’s work to replace it by his own.

8.Selling works or expecting reward doesn’t make any sense if one is to abide by the principles of La Grande lessive ®.

9.The people in charge of the organisation of La Grande lessive  ® cannot be held responsible in case works disappeared or are dammaged.

10. Any installation can be filmed or photographed by their organizors. Those documents will be allowed made public or published with a view at artistic exploitation or for educational use with the mention of the conceptor of the project (Joëlle Gonthier), the specific or diverse intermediaries who have intervened in the realization of the project (schools, town counsils), participants collectively, place, date, and specificities of the installation.

11. La Grande lessive ®  is a trade mark registered by its author to the I.N.P.I.

12. Any participant to La Grande lessive ® should accept its principles and its specificities.