From April to the end of May 2018, Le Channel Scène Nationale conducted - together with the plastic artist Momette, an academic researcher, a photographer and a scenographer - the first of two experimental creative workshops under the umbrella of the Atlas of Transitions activities.
Children and adults, locals and refugees living in Calais were involved in the artistic activities here with the aim to implement 'The Great Hands Collection', an evolving giant atlas of hands based on the handprints of all the people participating in the workshop, which generated travel stories and inner landscapes through drawings, paintings, soundtracks, images, photographic hands portraits, storytelling.
The great atlas of hands was conceived as a mix of personal and emotional ways, landscapes, destinies - plastic traces of life experiences. At a further stage, the work was presented to the public at Le Channel Scène Nationale as a plastic installation, an evolving and symbolic piece of art devoted to exploring our inner landscapes and destinies, using the handprints that the artistic team had collected from locals, migrants and asylum seekers.
The project, 'The Great Hands Collection', will grow from the first public presentation to the second one, in 2019.