Coming out
The journal’s suggested topic in its call for papers gives me an opportunity to review my personal journey, which is based on two lines of work: as a teacher/researcher in urban planning and sociology, and as an artist. I’ve been a lecturer since 2009, and from the early 2000s – a time which coincides with the beginning of my thesis – I’ve also been working jointly with Hughes Rochette. Together we create site-specific installations in the field of contemporary art, giving precedence to place and space. This paper is an occasion for me to question the way objects of reflexion, practices, and even forms of expression move between one world and another. This is not about assimilating both domains into one, but rather about understanding their “brief encounters”, as described by the scientist Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond. I shall take a closer at look at my personal and professional development as a teacher/researcher and as an artist so as to challenge when and how such encounters took place. This paper will also be an opportunity to reflect on research itself by asking how much importance is given to experimentation within a context in which assessment leads to a standardisation of scientific productions.