Initially “Tableaux Vivants” is a project proposed to a neighbourhood and is open to the participation of all its inhabitants. The project intends to formulate the inhabitants’ relationship to their place of living and to create themselves its mythology, based on past events, their views or imagination.
The two pillars of the project are locations (sites) and working groups – these groups can be organic (a class at school, the members of an association, the staff of an office), composed groupes (a class and their parents) or especially created groups, that are created around a specific location. They can represent a certain category of society, such as elderly people, or be mixed.
Each group will develop, together with us, a scene, a “living image” (tableau vivant), to be staged in their selected location. All the details will be thought thoroughly: the composition, the customs, the accessories, the shooting angle.
Each Tableau Vivant, will be then filmed, during several minutes. The characters in the image (a few people or a huge crowd), will stand still in their posture, while the background – clouds, leaves, animals, passers-by, or even staged interventions – will be in movement.
The Tableaux then will be edited, sound will be added. The sound can be a voice over, a narration, a commentary, a song, or a documented discussion.
The Tableaux Vivants is a very flexible participatory format. The participants don’t need to act, nor to speak-out, but still, they can position themselves, formulate ideas and play a role.
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Structure and emphasises in brief:
Preparatory phase:
– Spotting potential locations and groups: a group can lead to a location or vice versa (a location defines the group, for example, the inhabitants of a square)
– Forming the groups. Possibility for heterogeneous groups (ages, gender, backgrounds).
Process:
– 5 encounters with each group. Through discussions, visits to the locations and eventually some research, the group will develop the scene and all its details
>> Possibility of multi-scenes. A series of Tableaux Vivants with each group, thus telling a story.
>> Emphasise on video and not photo, the time, the live elements. Possibility to integrate non-frozen element  like – one person singing or reading a text, a group crossing the scene while the rest stay frozen.
>> Props, costumes, elaborated camera angles, the whole mise-en-scène is conceived together

Production:
– One shooting day per Tableau.
– The shooting becomes a mini-event. The neighbours are invited as spectators or as active participants as “extras” (for example, they are asked to stand at their windows, or to whistle at a given moment…)
– The scene is shot twice, each time during 5 minutes, with two cameras. One of the ensemble, one for close-ups.
– Editing of each tableau (image and added sound)
Presentation:
– During one weekend
– The Tableaux Vivants will be shown in screens already installed in stores / restaurants in the neighbourhood
– The public will get a map, and visit the exhibition
– At each exhibition location there’ll be one person or more from the group to mediate the work. Each time with a suitable set-up.
– A publication
– A commemorative plaque with the Tableau Vivant engraved in outlines and an url image code linked to the tableau online will be installed in each shooting location.