Palabre — Bintou Dembélé

Ateliers Médicis is a national cultural centre in the Parisian region (France) which is firmly situated in the suburbs away from the famous city monuments. The centre has national goals and hosts artists of all disciplines and supports artistic creation in connection with the territories. The centre encourages and organises encounters between artists and local residents. We are proud to be associated graphic designers from 2020.

Bintou Dembélé, the famous choreographer of the compagny Rualité, artist associated with the Ateliers Médicis, has created ‘Palabre’ - discussion circle documentaries about skills and artistic practices of the fringes.

Over the course of the episodes, Bintou Dembélé receives guests, famous or knowledgeable in their own field of practice. One thing unifies them all, they are pushed by the desire to explore new forms of representation and engagement. Among the guests that feature this documentary, Vinii Revlon a ‘voguing’ dancer, discusses urban dance originating in the 1970s in New York's LGBT clubs. Cyborg talks about ‘krump’ (a break dance branch), the singers Charlène Andjembé, Aline Tacite & Maboula Soumahoro talk about hair as a mode of resistance and Dénètem Touam Bona talk very movingly about ‘Marronnage’.

For this series of videos, a specific graphic design is created. New portraits are drawn using a scratch technic for each guest received by Bintou. For the typographic aspects, the graphic guidelines we designed for Ateliers Médicis is applied. Find out more about our work with Ateliers Médicis here.