Arts Collaboratory

L’Artocarpe is a non-profit artist run organisation based in Le Moule, on the island of Guadeloupe. It is a membership organization, that consist at the moment of 34 mostly young artists. Its mission is to promote contemporary art . Its aim is to encourage artists to research on and challenge their practice, experiment with new materials, confront their work to constructive feedback given by professionals. Therefore it set the focus on the connections between artist practices and theoretical input (via conferences, discussions, debates, portfolio reviews with art critics, publications and so on) and on closing the gap between the local artists and those who have decisive power over getting their practice into light, that is to say on connecting local artists to the (major) international curators and other professionals, and presenting their work on major art fairs (Biennales and other international exhibitions).

As it mainly runs with no funding, instead of struggling to organise top range events that may be far too expansive, it initiates events for other organisations. For example, when the contemporary art fair Art Bemao decided to run its 2010 edition, Lártocarpe offered to be a partner so as to be able to recommend two key figures of the art critique world in order to have them meet with Guadeloupen artists and give crucial feedback on their portfolio.

L'Artocarpe works collectively and in a hand-on way. Last year, collectively set up the solo exhibition of one of their members, the photographer Philippe Virapin ( by finding an appropriate venue to be turned into a gallery, seeking partners to enable to cover the cost of all large formats prints, press conference, advertising through bus stop on the entire island, etc). The exhibition was such as success that it received approximately 280 visitors a day over the month it was presented. Moreover, the sister island Martinique, saw it on TV and asked to host it right after the end of the show. It then carried on to be toured in other venues in Guadeloupe (Libraries and so on) for school to see it and it is today about to open in Paris, a year after the first exhibition.