Started in 1997, the Artist-in-Residence Program brings a different artist of international prominence to the school to participate in a year-long project of involving the entire student body. Each project is the artist's own creation and relates specifically to his or her medium.

The program epitomizes our unique approach to making the learning process engaging and fun. The Artist-in-Residence Program focuses on using art as a process of inquiry and allows the students to study the visual culture of our everyday surroundings and its relationship to other places, other disciplines, and other issues within society at large.

Past artists have included French modern artist Christian Boltanski, American fiber artist Sheila Hicks, French sculptor Laurent Baude, and Hubbard Street Dance Artistic Director Jim Vincent. The fruits of each of these creative collaborations have been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Terra Museum of American Art, the Chicago Historical Society and the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO

During the 2004-05 school year, Jim Vincent, artistic director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC), explored the expressive nature of movement with Lycée students. Working closely with art teacher Jean-Brice Wallon, Vincent led students in a discussion of the ways in which movement can at times transcend the spoken word. Vincent says: “We decided to approach choreography as means to communicate both as individuals and as part of a collective. The formality, discipline and structure of the school environment created the perfect 'rule' to be broken and inspired the basic concept of a Secret Fantasy: to run down the hall and slide as fast and as far as you might; daring to climb on and over the tables or desks; to dance in the stairwells of the Lycée Français.”

The production that emerged was dubbed SF/LF––Secret Fantasy/Lycée Français. It was a collection of dance works created by the students and three facilitators from HSDC's Education Department. The inspiration came in part from the work SF/DL, created for HSDC by choreographer Daniel Ezralow, as well as the music "Child" by David Lang.

PERIPERHIQUES ARCHITECTES

During the 2003-04 school year, Périphériques Architectes, a Parisian architectural collective, worked with the entire student body to design and build a model city. The goal of the project was to encourage the students to envision a city without limitations––wild, spontaneous and driven by utopia.

Representatives from the collective first visited the school in November 2003 and began by challenging the students to conceive of their own structures. There were no limits to what these might be––offices, bridges, homes, parks, factories, houses of worship, etc. The architects also led discussions about city-building and urban development. Then, under the guidance of art teacher Jean-Brice Wallon, each student built a scale paper model of his or structure.

The architects returned in March 2004 and held a series of workshops in which the students began assembling the models into a single city, guided by the need to ensure the wellfare of the city's inhabitants. The complete city model––comprised of more than 350 individual structures––was exhibited at the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

To learn more about this project, visit Flamescity.com, our interactive documentary of the experience.

BAUDE

For the 2000-01 and 2001-02 Artist-in-Residence Programs, the Lycée invited artist Laurent Baude to work with students on a unique project that was part sculpture and part environmental clean-up. “Eco-Archeology” tasked students and teachers with collecting refuse and debris from the banks of the Chicago River and “brownfields,” tracts of former industrial land.

Back in the classroom, the students worked in small groups, examining and sorting the collected objects, and assembling them to create various sculptures under Baude's guidance. At the end of the year, all the artworks produced through the collaboration, were exhibited. One large-scale sculpture was hung in the lobby of 120 S. Riverside for a period of six weeks.

HICKS

"Treasures and Secrets," the 1999-2000 Artist-in-Residence Project, was by definition about mystery, intrigue, discovery and play. Conceived by textile artist Sheila Hicks, the “treasures” dimension of the project was based upon a series of "treasure hunts" conducted by students. The students explored a variety of Chicago neighborhoods to look at the world of others. In each "treasure hunt," the students were given specific locations/areas to map, as well as "specimens" to gather and record. They were equipped with cameras, street maps and other useful materials. The students were required to document their expedition, as well as to report back to the other students in the school.

This series of expeditions provided a way of looking at the fabric of the city––in essence, “dropping a thread” from the Lycée to other places and people. This aspect was complemented by the "secrets" dimension of the project, in which every child at the school brought a favorite article of clothing and a stone, representing their private thoughts or secrets. Once again under Hicks' guidance, the students engages in a ritualistic process of enveloping and wrapping the stones with the clothing and threads.

Ultimately, "Treasures and Secrets" celebrated common human bonds by examining ways to build networks, work together and create modes of communication.

CAMARA

The 1999-98 Artist-in-Residence Project, “Identifying the Other Through Language,” focused on teasing out the relationship between personal identity and the words we speak. Ery Camara, a Senegalese artist, spent two weeks with Lycée students exploring and reflecting on African stories, poems, and literature to foster a deeper understanding of the worldview of other cultures.

Of his experience with the school, Camara said: “The intellectual exploration of the vast symbolic network that constitutes language offers itineraries whose boundaries disappear when one feels the need for authentic dialogue. At that place, the creative mind and sensibility are made present and operate to bring about transformations in the surrounding nature, as well as profoundly within human beings…Identity is a relation, not a fortress; the recognition of this implies a reciprocal opening up to each other which, by definition, cannot be one-sided.”

BOLTANSKI

The school's inaugural Artist-in-Residence project, undertaken in 1997, was an intensive collaboration with renown French installation artist Christian Boltanski. The project, called “Favorite Objects,” focused on the exploration of the meaning of the students' most prized possessions. Under Boltanski's guidance, the students and their teachers considered the meaning of these items through drawings, essays and interpretations.

Ultimately, each student brought in his or her favorite object, which was photographed, then copied onto plain paper and assembled into cardboard boxes. The result was a set of 264 artist's multiples that have been exhibited across the country in galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As a body of work, “Favorite Objects” is more than just a record of the students' belongings. It is also a poignant reminder of our own childhoods and an illustration of the enigmatic way in which memories touch our lives.

To learn more about this project, click here to launch our interactive documentary of the experience.