In addition to maritime festivals and major Breton festivals (Les Vieilles Charrues, the Festival du Bout du Monde, the Festival Interceltique, La Route du Rock...), the summer period is a privileged entry to promote a more intimate and participatory access to culture for all inhabitants, all generations and all territories.

Circus, itinerant theatre, street shows, music, baroque, lyrical, current as traditional, performances but also reading and engraving are part of the aesthetics and themes that animate the Cultural Summer in Brittany in July and August 2024.

This event is particularly aimed at young people and their families. It supports mediations and artistic proposals combining dissemination, participatory creation, discovery and sharing (summer camps, demonstrations, transmissions, workshops, etc.).

Some iconic projects:

Engrave Brittany by the association of Jean-Moulin workshops

René Quillivic, In the sea, Woodcut 1921

Organized every Thursday all summer on the territory of the Pointe du Raz community of communes (Finistère) a dozen workshops designed to provide access to artistic practices for audiences far from Culture (people in care facilities, people with disabilities, public in the social field, etc.) will be led by three young engravers. 
Inspired by observation, poetry or Celtic imagination, the various workshops will lead participants to discover their creative potential, the arts of engraving (on wood, linoleum, soft cut or dry point) and traditional Breton know-how. 
Two exhibitions and a booklet will present the work and disseminate these practices for all.

Discovering Yan’ Dargent

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the birth of Yan’ Dargent, a self-taught illustrator and painter from Finistère, the Saint-Servais Museum, which is entirely dedicated to this child of the country, took the initiative of a journey “In the footsteps of Yan’ Dargent” to discover his work through the department. The free visit of the museum allows for an extraordinary journey in the Divine Comedy of Dante illustrated by Yan’ Dargent. It includes access to the ossuary the parish enclosure that served as his workshop near which he is buried and the church where his religious works are exhibited. More than one forty events are planned in Finistère: conferences in Quimper, Saint-Servais and Landerneau, an exhibition offering the meeting of works of Yan' Dargent and contemporary creation in Landerneau, workshops for children in Quimper, a show inspired by the Lavandières de la nuit in Landerneau… Finally, contemporary engraver Serge Marzin exhibits woodcuts and copper. He also runs workshops. It was the woodcut that revealed Yan’ Dargent’s talents as an illustrator in the 19th century^e century. The museum of Saint-Servais is open until 31 August every day, except Monday, from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. 

The press kit of the celebrations

Art colonies of FRAC Bretagne

CAMILLE GIRARD AND PAUL BRUNET Le Cadran association 3 Regards Léo Lagrange in Concarneau © FRAC Bretagne

Three art colonies co-financed as part of the learning holiday are organized, on an experimental basis, by the Regional Contemporary Art Fund (FRAC) Bretagne and the French network. Several sessions are held throughout the summer for several age groups from 6 to 17 years. 450 young people benefit.

Involving four artists associated with the FRAC (Camille Girard and Paul Brunet, Jonas Delhaye, Maxence Chevreau) installed near the places of stays, these summer camps take place in equestrian center and youth hostel in Concarneau, Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère) and Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine).

The participants, guided by contemporary artists and accompanied by their animators, analyze and translate their summer activities (horseback riding, maritime stays, visits to heritage sites, etc.) by discovering or deepening their artistic passion and practicing, depending on the stay, photo, video, sculpture, drawing, charcoal, painting…

The Block Party of Hip hop New School 

Created in 2002 by young Quimpers, theAssociation Hip Hop New School aims to promote hip-hop culture in all its forms. The school offers dance, beatbox and parkour classes in several municipalities. As part of the Cultural Summer, it invests the public space and makes the practice of dance known to the greatest number. By forging partnerships that will make the link between circus and hip-hop, the young people and the company invest the forecourt of Penhars in Quimper during the week of August 19, which ends in a great event: the Block Party August 24 Place d'Écosse in Quimper, in the spirit of the "Fêtes de quartier" that began in the late 70s in the streets of the Bronx in New York.

Other multi-site or itinerant projects:

Tell me your loves by Street lyricism

The artists of this young company lead the public with lightness, sensitivity and humor to discover the multiple facets of the lyrical voice. Arias of operas, musicals and melodies respond and clash, all in a warm and uninhibited spirit inspired by the theater of trestles. This show directed by Katja Krüger is offered in 8 stages in Pontivy, Guerlédan, Ploemel, Quelven at the Château de Brélidy, Moncontour, Trébédan and Guern.

Echonova, Scène de musiques actuelles (SMAC) of the agglomeration of Vannes, organizes its Echopark

For this second edition of l'Echopark, the SMAC team has chosen to combine artistic requirement, discovery of the natural heritage of Morbihan with soft mobilities and solar energy. On foot, by bike, by boat, by carpooling, this break in 6 stages (Séné, Larmor-Baden, Arradon, Arzon, Ile d'Arz and Saint-Avé) goes out of the walls to meet new audiences by inviting to walk the paths and take the sea to meet the artists.

Back on the summer edition:

The Dourven in a Caravan 

The Gallery of the Dourven is a creative and exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art. Located in an exceptional natural area of 16 hectares, it rests on a rocky point of the coast of Trédrez-Locquémeau, at the mouth of the bay of Lannion in the Côtes-d'Armor. In early November 2023, Storm Ciáran caused extensive damage to the Dourven Park. Due to the extensive restoration work on the site, the park and the Dourven Gallery remain closed to the public throughout 2024. Faced with this constraint, the Gallery reinvents itself and rethinks its 2024 programming outside the walls. 
The 2024 programming being placed under the sign of rurality, the Gallery proposes for the summer a travelling project in order to export the artistic project to the neighbouring rural communes of Trédrez-Locquémeau. 
For its summer roaming, the Galerie du Dourven approached the duo of artists Neven Denis (photographer and filmmaker) and Mehdi Boubekeur (graphic designer and photographer), for a collaboration and declination of their project of «Caravan carto-photo-graphic».

The caravan in pictures:

Baroque stops proposed by the association The Heavenly Banquet.

Baroque stops at the Jacobins convent in Rennes © DRAC Bretagne

Born with the first Cultural Summer, the Baroque stops cross the four Breton departments to discover Baroque Europe. Three programs are proposed and performed twice on each stage: works for sonatas and violin of Johann Sebastian Bach, 17th-century Italian and German music^e and French music of the court of Louis XIV. The musicians and the tenor stop in heritage places (chapels and convent) but also at Josselin Hospital, at the women’s prison of Rennes and in two establishments (Brest and Le Minihic-sur-Rance) of accommodation for dependent elderly (Nursing home) where Isabelle Saint-Yves, viola de gamba, and Aurélien Oudot, acrobatic dancer, pose each two days in immersion, to meet the residents, their families and professionals.

Find the program of the Breton Cultural Summer  and the press kit of the national edition.