I was in Lille with Joanna Jones last week to visiting Nicolette Picheral in Lille Sud, where I used to go when I was project co-ordinator of Mode Future for UCA.

We also visited Tourcoing on the border with Belgium where we went to a lunchtime presentation of an urban regeneration/town planning project which is renovating houses in a district of the town initially due to be demolished. We had time to visit one of the houses before going to see Pierre-Yves Brest’s exhibition in Tourcoing library made during a residency in the districts known as La Bourgogne and La Marlière from June to September 2013. The exhibition is entitled Opus Incertum, a term still used by architects today which refers to the ancient Roman construction technique of using irregular shaped and randomly placed stones. The exhibition which includes photographs and a film examines the theme of the ‘border’, ‘wall’, ‘frontier’ or ‘barrier’: The film is a fascinting and disturbing exposé of a community that has literally been marginalised, placed within a fortress, on the edge, on the border, out of the way; at the same time, the community, living by means of a parallel economy  now wards off mainstream society and is wary of prying eyes or interference.

Both Nicolette and Pierre-Yves  have worked with DAD.