Last positions open for the FDC exchange program! The Future DiverCities (FDC) project continues the Twinning program! (mobility grant) This is a unique opportunity to visit and exchange with the Future DiverCities pilot sites. Each pilot is located in a different EU city and has its own different profile.
Twinning Program #7: between one ECHN member and the Future DiverCities partners, La Friche and CHRONIQUES, Marseille
Location: Marseille
Calendar: 5 days in April (the week of the 26th), July (around the 23rd); or Fall 2025
Deadline to apply: 30 March 2025
Who are the Partners
La Friche La Belle de Mai, in its prototypal form, arose in 1992 out of the new models for urban cultural interaction in the public interest, now known as “third places.” This unique, reinvented space brings together artistic activity, modes of urban transformation, real connections to the region, and dynamic cooperation. La Friche is both a workspace for 70 resident organizations representing all creative disciplines (400 artists, producers, and employees work here every day), and a cross-disciplinary venue (each year, over 600 artistic events are made available to the public). Every year, 450,000 visitors come to this 45,000 square-meter public space housing five performance spaces, a community garden, a playground and athletic space, a restaurant, bookstore, daycare, some 2,400 square meters of exhibition space, an 8,000 square-meter rooftop, and a training center. Thanks not only to its size but also to the number and variety of spaces, La Friche provides workspace to artists, in addition to allowing numerous projects to develop at the same time. Sculptors, actors, painters, photographers, dancers, and producers can have the time and space they need for writing and creating.
CHRONIQUES is one of the leading organisations dedicated to digital arts in France, whose ambition is to propose a new outlook on societal transformations incurred by the digital revolution through the unique viewpoint of arts and creation. They accompany artists, encourage contemporary artistic forms using new technologies, and run a wide range of educational and cultural engagement activities with different audiences, aiming at accompanying a conscious and creative appropriation of digital tools. Community building is at the heart of CHRONIQUES’ activities, which is constantly testing new forms of co-curation and community involvement processes. CHRONIQUES is a resident at La Friche La Belle de Mai.
La Friche and CHRONIQUES have teamed up with Terrains Vagues and Pepins Production, two local associations specialised in architecture, urban greening and co-design. Over the next few months, the Marseille team will take over a garden located in Crimée street that embodies aspects that the project seeks to explore: commoning areas, greening spaces and the different relationships with non-human beings. During the co-design workshops, the inhabitants and users of the garden are engaged into collective activities and create cooperation dynamics that will perdure even after the end of Future DiverCities project.
Challenges of the partner
-The question of legacy
-To continue the current implementation after the project
- To address the expectations regarding the narrative aspect and the sense of community fostered in the garden through the project activities.
Marseille has seen recent major problems of space management, with deadly collapses of dilapidated buildings, and the city has very important regeneration plans. The pilot site is in the neighborhood of La Belle de Mai where La Friche and Chroniques are located, right in the city centre. The approach on Commoning aims at creating citizen-led processes, fostering citizens participation and a form of renewed collective ownership of the area, whilst exploring positive applications of the Nudge theory.
Needs of the partner
-To narrate the first phase of implementation as well as the second one.
-To document commoning practices in creative ways
-To make participants tell their story to foster their engagement in the implementation and its legacy.
-To highlight the notion of care in the space and the need to preserve it for all living beings
Profile of the ECHN member
It would be interesting to collaborate with another initiative that has:
-A creative vision for the implementation of commoning practices, reflected in the project’s execution.
-A unique approach to narrating and documenting the project on-site, with the involvment of beneficiaries and other associations participating in the commoning dynamics.
-Fluency in French is preferred but not required.
What will you gain from this exchange?
The Future DiverCities partner proposes to the ECHN member:
-Exchange best practices and experiences while meeting a variety of stakeholders from the creative and social sectors collaborating on common initiatives.
-Connect with various workers from La Friche and its vibrant creative and cultural ecosystem.
-Gain the opportunity to engage in a grassroots project that actively experiments with innovative practices in methodology, local actor synergies, environmental awareness, and artistic creation.
- Attend the activities organised in the garden in April 2026
The pilot project in Marseille sits at the intersection of creativity and urban planning, where the preservation and enhancement of green spaces through artistic practices promotes citizen engagement and contribute to a sustainable vision for urban spaces.
All the details of the call and how to apply here.
