Escales

The Galeries Lafayette project is a social project whose ambition is to put the energy of creation, whatever its fields of expression, at the service of the greatest number of people. Our department stores, timeless living spaces located in the heart of cities, have always developed at the speed of culture in order to capture the spirit of the times and offer their customers the best of what the era produces. This presence of artists has always favoured the emergence of new forms and ideas that contribute to the reinvention of consumption patterns.

Five female composers from Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Morocco and France were invited to create new works based on sound recordings made in a port city in their home country. Each fitting room equipped with shower speakers becomes a real musical stopover and invites immersion, a metaphor for the shores of the Mediterranean.
The fitting rooms of Galeries Lafayette Marseille Prado are rare spaces of intimacy in the hustle and bustle of department stores, and become the ideal place for experimenting with sensitive works. Escales is an artistic commission from Galeries Lafayette, created for the Festival Les Musiques in partnership with the gmem-CNCM-marseille for the fitting rooms of the Marseille Prado shop.

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The artists:

Habiba Effat: Sound artist and writer. Born in 1991 in Cairo (Egypt), she lives and works there.
She has a degree in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo. Habiba Effat writes regularly for the independent electronic newspaper Mada Masr.
Kinda Hassan: Multimedia artist. Born in 1984 in Beirut (Lebanon), she lives and works in Paris.
She explores the fields of video and sound, and has long been interested in the phenomena of influence exerted by the city on the body of individuals.
Sara Kaddouri: Sound designer. Born in 1991 in Al Marinyine (Morocco), she lives and works in Casablanca.
She is considered today as one of the most important figures in Egyptian cinema, she is a film sound designer, mixer and sound recorder.
Cécile Le Prado: Composer. Born in 1956 in Saint-Nazaire (France), she lives and works in Marseille.
After studying electroacoustic music, she became interested in the spatialization of sound as a parameter of musical writing. Her sound installations closely combine the recording of real sound and its technological transformation.
Esthir Lemi: Artist and composer. Born in 1975 in Patras (Greece), she lives and works there.
She works on the artistic process and its reality as well as on the complementarity of art forms and the way technology interferes.