photo: Pauline Gouablin
In 2024, the UNESCO Cities of Literature Ljubljana and Angoulême, the latter widely recognized as an international comics capital, partnered with the French Institute to present a new residency program (“La fabrique des résidences”) aimed at supporting Slovenian and French creativity in comics. The first call for applications for the October 2024 one-month residency in Ljubljana was an immense success. We are grateful to have received 20 applications in the first year of this program, all of which demonstrated truly remarkable quality!
We appreciate this confirmation of the project’s relevance, considering it indicative of a productive future exchange. We value the efforts of all applicants and acknowledge that they significantly enhance the overall appeal of this international program.
The first resident, selected by the Slovene and French juries, will be the French artist André Derainne. Born in 1994, André Derainne is a comic book author, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Strasbourg. He has exhibited his illustrations and paintings in numerous galleries and group exhibitions, produced posters for various festivals, contributed illustrations to various magazines and newspapers, published several zines, and created watercolor sets for the animated film Les Belles Cicatrices by Raphaël Jouzeau, presented in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
In André Derainne’s words, “Telling stories through text and images is what I love to do above all else, and what I hope to continue doing in the coming years.” Having already published two comic books (Des fourmis dans les jambes, Fidèle Éditions, 2023; Un orage par jour, Keribus Éditions, 2021), Derainne will spend his time in Ljubljana working on a new book. After all, residency programs are, in his strong opinion, a vital factor in providing a supportive, stimulating environment for an artist to experiment freely and develop their work. A case in point was the time Derainne spent at Villa Saigon in Vietnam in 2019, which enabled him to lay out the foundations for his first comic book.
André Derainne’s portfolio, focusing mostly on works made with ink on paper and gouache on wood, shows an imaginative aesthetic defined by a thoughtful use of color, meticulous attention to detail, and compelling narratives. Creating dynamic and evocative dialectics, his images juxtapose a sense of tranquility where emptiness alludes to some invisible plenitude, with almost surreal scenographies of beautifully imaginative yet strangely uncanny worlds.
We are honored to host André Derainne as the first artist-in-residence of this new program. Stay tuned for details about his appearances and interactions with the local community.