The “Power Coron” exhibition brings together videos, installations and drawings by Bertille Bak, an artist from Arras who is a resident of the Pinault residence in 2020. She is known for her work, which ranges from picturesque documentaries to poetic fiction, focusing on the local, popular and community cultures, as well as the mining heritage. Emblematic of the beginnings of her artistic practice, Bertille Bak is reviving the video Faire le mur (Doing the Wall), shot in the late 2000s in her family’s housing estate, Cité n°5.

From the destroyed corons to the displaced populations to the children deprived of their carefree years, POWER CORON then shifts to recent projects: with the exceptional installations Mineur Mineur and This Mine is Mine, she revives the current reality of working in the mines from an early age. With no angelism or concessions, it’s a question of disappearance, inequality and injustice. Each work reveals a new language of protest, more akin to a big party than a storming.

“THE GALLERIES OF TIME

As part of artconnexion’s New Sponsors initiative, the museum’s neighbours asked artists Bertille Bak and Charles-Henry Fertin to create a work linking the museum to their neighbourhood. This participatory work brings together all the players in the Lens area, and gives visitors the chance to take part in a collective creative workshop.