Rwandan-French choreagrapher-performer Dorothée Munyaneza and Nicolas Détrie, urban economist, creative partner and co-founder of Yes We Camp, are in residence in Chicago co-organized by High Concept Labs ( Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla) and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Chicago. During their residency and through their respective work, they are collaborating with diverse organizations: Experimental Station, University of Chicago (Harris School of Public Policy, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, the Centre France Chicago…), Invisible Institute, Blackstone Bikes, High Concept Labs, the School of the Art Institute Chicago, among others. The residency will devise the first draft of a new work by Dorothée and her company Kadidi, premiering in 2020 at Festivals d’Avignon and Marseille. This residency is part of City/Cité, an initiative of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Chicago that explores, through exchange programs between French and US Midwestern cities, the power of creative and social innovation in challenging urban spaces.

The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) presents Confinement: Politics of Space and Bodies, a group exhibition exploring the physical and psychological effects of different kinds of confinement, whether the comfort of a cocoon-like space, or the restrictive nature of an enclosure. The exhibit present works by 19 global artists—including French artists Nicolas Daubanes, Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan), Myriam Mihindou, Mathieu Pernot and Catherine Poncin —grappling with timely issues including incarceration and the effects of institutional confinement, and the types of bodies disproportionately affected by these structures.

In the context of the creation of their new Center in Paris, the University of Chicago and the City of Paris are co-hosting a conversation featuring scholars and practitioners on both sides of the Atlantic around the theme of reinventing cities. Jeanne Gang (Founding Principal Architect of Studio Gang) and Jean-Louis Missika (Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning, Architecture, and the “Grand Paris” Project) will be the featured speakers.

The 2020 call for application for Étant Donnés—the French-American Fund for contemporary art—is now open! American institutions and curators, as well as French artists can apply for projects taking place between June 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021.