Conceived through a dialogue between choreographer Christian Rizzo and curator Anne-Laure Lestage, An Assembly of Gestures (Episode 1) approaches the exhibition as a space of making—a site of collective experimentation in which gesture functions both as the driving force of production and as a method of composition. Presented at Les Magasins Généraux as part of the CN D’s off-site programme, this first chapter, which inaugurates a cycle of exhibitions devoted to gesture, explores correspondences between choreographic, craft-based and domestic practices.

Here, gesture is considered simultaneously as an object of study, a research tool, and a form in its own right. It connects dance to craftsmanship, the work of the hand to the movement of the body, and everyday life to artistic creation. The artists brought together for this first episode share a common attentiveness to gesture, to making, and to the performative dimension of doing. Their practices reflect a sensitive approach to manual labour, to the transformation and/or arrangement of materials, understood as performative gestures.

Upon opening, the exhibition begins with a moment of action and fabrication. The invited artists intervene within the space, in the presence of the public. The act of making thus becomes the starting point of the dispositif. These shared gestures initiate the first movement of the exhibition. The objects, structures, and installations produced on this occasion subsequently take their place within the space of Les Magasins Généraux, integrated into the works presented and remaining visible throughout the duration of the exhibition.

In An Assembly of Gestures, the performative gesture is both the point of origin and the memory of the object. It prompts reflection on the relationship between body, matter, and time: how can an action, a transformation, a movement become a work? And how can that which was made under the gaze of others continue to act once the gesture has been suspended? Situated between exhibition and process, An Assembly of Gestures (Episode 1) restores gesture to its value as both thought and connective force. By articulating choreographic, craft-based, and domestic practices, it questions how making can become form—and how this trace, in turn, can generate a new space of experience.