Mixing drawings and photographs, Birds is a 30-page book printed in 100 copies. It comes with a text by Didier Clain and Nathalie Lacroix. Excerpt: “Time is marked by care and medical appointments. A. is smiling, but her clothes hide the unseen suffering. Alone together, confidences. Disturbed, deeply moved.” The book can be read here.

The book is a result of the Contemporary Itinerary program in partnership with Arts & Health - La Manufacture, an innovative journey for discovering and raising awareness of contemporary art, co-created with four hospitals in the Paris region. This program invited participants—staff, patients, visitors, and artists—to step aside from healthcare settings, professional practices, and art. In a few workshops, hospital residents were able to create a collective in situ installation, blending Didier Clain’s folded vocabulary with their own.

During the confinement period, to extend the Contemporary Itinerary program and not leave the staff and users of the four hospitals in the Paris region stranded, Didier Clain proposed “Itinerary Workshops,” an online workshop program for patients, medical staff, and anyone interested.

PARTNERS:
{Arts & Santé La Manufacture} {Fondation Berger-Levrault} {REDEP95} {Ministère de la Culture - Drac Île-de-France}