Parrot
With students in grades 2 through 4 from the Laurent de Bimorel, Cavelier de la Salle, Jules Ferry, and Marthe Corneille elementary schools (Rouen).
In the spring of 2021.
The project combines the discovery of contemporary and historical photography with visits to exhibitions (images presented in class, due to the COVID-19 situation), and to experiment in a playful way with notions such as the everyday and its re-enchantment or the self and the invention of the self through fiction. This two-stage workshop, led by Sophie Grassart, takes as its starting point, on the occasion of the Flaubert Bicentennial, an emblematic character from his work, Loulou, the parrot from the tale Un coeur simple. Inspired by this animal character and the architecture of Normandy, the artist Sophie Grassart invites the students to interpret, imagine and create.
To do this, students paint backgrounds inspired by the Normandy half-timbering and create their parrot costume. From paper maché, students make a portable structure, legs, beak, wings… The whole thing is then photographed in front of the schools’ walls.
A small format spiral edition is produced for this project. Alternating colored painted backgrounds and photographs of students in parrot costumes, we discover the multiplicity of possible combinations to incarnate as Loulou.
As part of the “CTEJ” initiative, in partnership with the DRAC Normandy, the Rouen School District, the Seine-Maritime Departmental Directorate of National Education, and the City of Rouen.
