In 2024, Triangle-Astérides is celebrating thirty years of an “institution” that hasn’t always been one — and, in fact, long resisted being named as such. It is the result of the merger between two associations founded by artists: Astérides in 1992 and Triangle France in 1994.

Invited to write a text for the occasion, I began a series of conversations with members of the current team, some of the co-founders, supporters, and close affiliates of Triangle-Astérides, whom I met during an anniversary dinner. The memories, anecdotes, and testimonies of everyone involved brought to light the complexity of a history imbued with affect, as well as the plural — and at times conflicting — nature of the stories and experiences associated with these spaces, deeply rooted in a very specific context (La Friche Belle de Mai, the city of Marseille, and its artistic and political fabric).

Rather than drawing from interviews and archives to write a single narrative from a narrow or distanced perspective, I proposed to the Triangle-Astérides team to place conversation at the very heart of this anniversary project — by centering the voices of various protagonists of Triangle and Astérides. Each conversation is open to current team members who wish to attend, with the aim of fostering transmission and dialogue between generations of people connected to these spaces.

Published over the course of several months, the conversations are accompanied by selected archival materials, gathered through an ongoing process of collection led by the team. Through this series, the intention is not to construct yet another institutional narrative, but rather to open up an affective and polyphonic history of Triangle-Astérides — of the people who shaped it, and who in turn were transformed by their time within it.

Virginie Bobin