TEH Conference 101 in Marseille
This upcoming spring we are meeting in Marseille, France, for the 101th time! We will be hosted by our member centre Friche la Belle de Mai a former tobacco factory that has been transformed into a cultural space since 1992.
The theme of this year's conference is "Imagining Within Limits: Creative Hubs and Planetary Boundaries".
Why imagining within limits: creative hubs and Planetary Boundaries on focus?
In today’s world, the role of the creative hubs have become a major strategic issue, at the intersection of ecological transition, public policy, cultural production models, and our relationship with local territories.
Creative hubs are already directly impacted: destabilised economic models (declining attendance, rising energy costs, scarcity of materials), events cancelled or relocated due to heatwaves. These disruptions deeply challenge the viability of our current activities and services.
But beyond these observations, our role is essential. We hold a double responsibility: to inform of course, to adapt, but also to drive transformation. As spaces of creation and experimentation, we have the power to generate alternative narratives and desirable imaginaries in response to the crisis, offering a perspective beyond the often anxiety-inducing scientific discourse. We also have the ability to connect with audiences in a different way, and to spark new ways of thinking, living, and organising society.
At La Friche, we are now fully committed to a path of ecological redirection. This is not simply about technical transition, it is a profound questioning of our uses, our purposes, and our relationship to place. Our ambition is to contribute to a deep and structural transformation of our practices.
What must we stop, transform, or reinvent in order to stay within planetary boundaries?
Subthemes
In a time of accelerating ecological and climate crises, creative hubs are being pushed to rethink their missions, models, and relationships with the territories they inhabit. More than ever, these spaces must navigate a complex landscape of adaptation, resilience, and transformation.
This subthematic sessions will explore the future perspectives for creative hubs, looking at how they can become active participant of ecological transition, not only through technical solutions, but by reconfiguring their practices, values, and roles within local ecosystems.
While creative hubs hold potential as catalysts for local resilience, many lack the solutions or networks needed to effectively embed themselves in their territories and foster meaningful cooperation in the face of climate and social disruptions.
How can creative hubs cooperate locally and deepen their territorial anchorage to respond to climate and social disruption?
What forms of letting go, transformation, or reinvention are necessary in the face of planetary boundaries?
How do we embrace the discomfort of change while remaining open to collective experimentation?
How can social ecology be reimagined not as a theoretical concept, but as a practical framework grounded in community engagement, collective care, and shared responsibility for the living environment?
At La Friche la Belle de Mai, we see our partnership with the Southern Mediterranean not as a top-down relationship or a conventional axis of international cooperation, but rather as a horizontal dialogue, rooted in shared local realities.
As part of this annual conference, we believe it is essential to explore the issues of our common identity, reciprocity, and the circulation of practices and imaginaries. This also means fostering co-construction and connecting the specific challenges of our own territories with the broader dynamics at play on the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
About the host
La Friche la Belle de Mai is a former tobacco factory that has been transformed into a cultural venue in 1992. A creative hub for arts and innovation welcoming 450,000 visitors every year, La Friche brings together, in a unique and reinvented space, urban transformation, ecological redirection, artistic creation, connection to the territory, and active cooperation for the common good.
Born from the former Seita factory, and now a hub for creativity and innovation, La Friche la Belle de Mai serves both as a workspace for its 70 resident organizations and as a venue for public programming.
Art and culture are created, produced, shared, and showcased. But like in any neighborhood, you can also stroll through the streets, relax in public spaces, enjoy a meal or coffee at the café and restaurant Les Grandes Tables, drop off your child at daycare or take them to play at the playground, buy fresh produce at the farmers’ market, or even grow your fruits and vegetables in the collective and family gardens…
Thanks to its size and wide range of spaces, La Friche can offer workspaces to artists and also allow for the simultaneity of projects. Here, sculptors, actors, painters, photographers, dancers, producers—can all take the time they need to develop and produce their work.
La Friche’s philosophy is simple, culture is for everyone. It also encourages the combining of practices and the public. These values are found throughout its year-round artistic programming.
Cultivating an urban space is a delicate and constantly evolving process, and one of La Friche’s « raison d’être » has always been to develop flexible and adaptable frameworks. Ecological awareness and sustainability, challenging established norms and procedures, along with experimentation and a collective mindset, are central to its urban and architectural approach, exemplified by the greening of the city through community gardens and landscaped public spaces.
- 450,000 visitors each year
- 100,000 m² surface area
- 8,000 m² rooftop terrace (open during the summer for concerts, music festivals)
- 2,500 m² of exhibition space
- 6 performance venues, including 3 concert halls (which can welcome between 300 and 5,000 visitors)
- 600 events organized annually
- 400 residents (permanent or temporary)
- 20 rooms for artists in an on-site hostel