Creative residencies
Quai des Savoirs aims to weave science back into the realm of the senses, explore the imaginaries of knowledge and futures, refocus on humans and living beings, and give full place to the human and social sciences, digital humanities, and contemporary creation.
To achieve this, Quai des Savoirs welcomes performing artists, visual artists, or digital artists for creative residencies of one to two weeks. This program provides support and assistance for a stage of work in the creation of a work, centered on the articulation with the scientific and/or technological worlds. It offers creators a creation grant, access to the Quai des Savoirs studio, and networking with laboratories and research organizations in the Toulouse metropolis. For each residency, one or more meetings with the public are organized.
Encouraging collaboration between artists and scientists enables us to take a fresh look at societal, technological and environmental issues.
Crédit photo © Emmanuel Grimault
2025 supported artists
Sara Bensaltana
Bringing photography to life
With photographic film as support and chemistry as material, Sara Bensaltana’s work is a struggle against the sterility of the image. Through an experimental approach, she transforms photography into a veritable plastic tool, using light as the main protagonist.
2024 supported artists
Scalpel company
When the robot is one with the human
When does the machine meet the human? The Scalpel company has one goal: to merge electronics with the human body. During this residency, the group decided to work with sound and image-generating AIs. The ultimate goal is simple: to become one with the machine.
Science Comedy Show
AI takes the stage
What if the end of the world was coming? The Science Comedy Show tells the story of how scientists prepare for their last day. Dark Science Show is Matthieu Pouget’s new theatrical form, written during a residency at Quai des Savoirs.
MAB company
Artistic research, scientific research (SonIA 3/3)
A piece for a machine, a dancer and spectators. SonIA is a creative project that addresses the ambivalence of AI at the intersection of the arts and sciences. Following Marie Vauzelle’s residencies from 2022 to 2023, the company is preparing to leave the residency in October…
Nicolas Gourault
Clickworkers
They categorize the world we live in. Nicolas Gourault sheds light on the work of these men and women that feeds the machines. His work reveals a broader phenomenon, the micro-market of online work, studied by sociologist Antonio Casilli.
Zeph Thibodeau
The robots guardian
Zeph Thibodeau advocates that we can maintain social relationships with the machines that live with us. Through his vision and practice of care with robots, he enables us to reflect on our own relationships with the natural and artificial world.
2023 supported projects
Maxime Riché
Sensitive augmented reality
In Paradise, Maxime Riché exhibits images of a population caught in the path of a megafire. The artist transcribes the emotions of resilience, the aftermath of destruction. In residence at the Quai des Savoirs, he has opened up new dimensions to his photographs.
Scalène company
Communicative energy, regenerative energy
Comme un rayonnement sheds poetic light on human energy and the incredible internal and collective resources we possess to transmit and regenerate it. Spotlight (pulsating to the cadence of pedal-pushers) on the advances made by Cie Scalène.
Carabosse company
Flame poetry
Carabosse has never ceased to embrace the artistic language of the flame, bringing people together and transforming public space. Since 2020, the company has sought to enrich its writing by reflecting on how our relationship with fire is evolving.
Paul Vivien
Apocalyptic-poetic
Rather than the mere catastrophe scenario, Paul Vivien sees the end of the human world as sublimating the beauty of a Nature that is reclaiming its rights. In residence at the Quai des Savoirs, he collaborated with scientists from Atécopol to imagine Toulouse in this new light.
MAB company
Research under the skin (SonIA 2/3)
Between narration, technology and movement, SonIA conveys on stage what happens in a research laboratory: the emotions and questions of a researcher alone with her object of study: a robot. An artistic and scientific challenge.
K. Danse company
BACK TO 2084
What if AI made it possible to create immortal beings? Jean-Marc Matos attempts to give substance to this techno-scientific fiction through an immersive, interactive and participative experience, challenging the usual choreographic codes.
NoKill company
Lighting up the black room
In a world without electricity, will we have to give up cinema? With Camera Obscura, Nokill attempts to free itself from the technological advances that have made this form of artistic expression possible, by developing a living cinema system that works with daylight.
Scalène company
Creative energy
What would happen if we no longer had access to the energy required to illuminate and provide sound for our shows? Where would we find this energy, and how could we transmit it? These are just some of the questions driving the creation of Scalène’s Comme un rayonnement.
2021 and 2022 supported projects
Bruno Ruganzu and Hellen Nabukenya
Repair, recycle, reuse to rebuild the future
Bruno Ruganzu and Hellen Nabukenya each work from waste and recycled materials, for the benefit of local communities. This three-week residency was the starting point for the creation of two monumental collaborative artworks.
Alain Josseau
Live artificialization
Specialist in the art of war, Alain Josseau denounces the manipulation of images and mass information. The artist teamed up with an engineer and a scientist from Toulouse’s LAAS-CNRS to create a robotic creature to take part in a real-life fake news broadcast.
MAB company
A laboratory with high poetic potential (SonIA 1/3)
What bonds are forged between a robot and the scientists who build it? Beyond the fears and hopes raised by AI, Marie Vauzelle’s SonIA examines the poetic dimensions of fundamental research in this field.