Antre-Peaux (Bourges - Cher)

Emmetrop is an association of law 1901 created in September 1984. Today it has sixteen permanent members, about seventy member music groups (more than three hundred musicians), two hundred and fifty individual members and ten associations, about fifteen volunteers.
Emmetrop’s work covers a wide artistic field, from contemporary and experimental music to contemporary art (Transpalette), urban cultures, street and circus arts, and young audience theatre.
It is involved in creation, dissemination, training and mediation.

Originally, a group of students from the École des Beaux Arts de Bourges and some individuals from various artistic backgrounds (cinema, music, theatre) decided to create an association to experiment, in daily life and urban social space, a concept of cultural action where art and life are closely related.

EMMETROP AND THE DRAC CENTRE
The DRAC became interested in this structure in the early 1990s.
At that time, culture was trying to find its place within the framework of city policy. In 1992, faced with the small presence of artistic and cultural operators in the neighbourhoods, the DRAC decided to recruit a project manager for the city’s policy. The inclusion of the DRAC in the interdepartmental policy framework of the city and the recruitment of the project manager allow a field work with the project leaders of the neighborhoods in social development and the local associative and artistic structures. Strong projects were gradually emerging, notably in Orléans, Bourges and Blois.

For its part, in Bourges, the Emmetrop association has been working since the early 1990s on cultural action in the Chancery district, which is reflected in a continuous presence of actions:
- two exhibitions by visual artist Claude Lévêque as part of the residence "occupied apartment operation"; these two exhibitions are entirely mounted by young people from the area with the collaboration of the Galerie de Paris and the critic Michel Nurisdany.
- Le OUFF du printemps de Bourges, RAP festival, Raï, Rock de cinq jours sur le quartier de la Chancellerie.

The first trace of DRAC subsidy in favour of Emmetrop appears in 1992 with a grant for the Ouff Festival (60,000 F); the association also received DSQ (social development of neighbourhoods) credits for a residency as a visual artist, a street theatre operation and a tag-graf workshop (37,800 F).

From that time on, Emmetrop appeared to be one of the most interesting mediation structures in the region in terms of project quality and adjustment to the field of social development.

Since then, the association has amplified its role as a mediator between young people and socio-cultural facilitators regarding various cultural practices.

Since 1992, the DRAC has supported the association for its work combining artistic requirements, work over time and solid knowledge - and consideration - of the realities of the field.

THE PLACE: AN INDUSTRIAL WASTELAND: LEISEING WORKSHOPS

Since 1993, Emmetrop has been located in an industrial wasteland, the former Leiseing building materials manufacturing plant located on the La Chapelle road in Bourges.
The factory dates back to the 1930s. It is partially protected as historical monuments: its facade on street, the roof terrace, the vestibule on the ground floor, the staircase are inscribed as historical monuments by order of 5 March 2001.

ACTUALITY
The year 2020 was marked by the creation of a contemporary art centre combining the Transpalette and the former space dedicated to audiovisual and digital cultures, the «Haidouc», and the launch of the project to create a third extension, unique in France, dedicated to the “Bioart”, entitled URSULAB.
This «laboratory» of arts and sciences pursues and develops the «transgender» investigations characteristic of the art center, questioning inter-species relations and, in particular, relations between humans and non-humans.