Louis NEUVILLE (FR)
Louis Neuville is the founder president of the non-profit organisation le lac. Born in France in 1985 and graduated from a master’s degree in journalism, he could have embraced a potential carrer in the media following an significant encounter with Marc Dachy, a famous art historian, expert of Dada Movement, who hired him as an assistant and offered him his first publication as an author (Berlin-est, Luna Park, 2007). He met Apolonia Breuil, opening him the doors of the Lavoir Moderne Parisien. After a three years co-leading of the LMP (creation of the festival Les évadés du bocal, co-managing of Olympic café, creation of La tendre émeute, campaign for Parti pirate, Big ballroom pounchd, the Femens…), he decided to open his own space in Brussels. le lac, in 2014, an hybrid place, where we live, where we work and where we welcome. With a first team, he rehabilitated wide dilapidated warehouses into an alternative cultural center, in which many diverse events are taking place (exhibitions, theater, cinema, concerts, residencies, workshops, working or reflecting groups). The project was a success thanks to the strong reputation gained in the city, but had to face regulation issues relative to public reception standards. The experience lasted 3 years and came to the following observation : we have to try again in another place, built on the basis of an efficient dialogue with public, urbanism, culture and environment institutions. The second lac opened on December 31st 2017, in a place near of Le petit château, on 36 rue de witte de haelen in Brussels, after 1 year of rehabilitation works, a certificate of compliance of the cultural mission of asbl le lac from Siamu and the acknowledgment by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and the Fédération Flamande.
Developed on its basis as a way for a team of 5 to 12 artists to cope with socio-economic precariousness, le lac is above all a social project aiming to increase the living and working conditions of its members. Its low prices politics and its programmation open to the city also define le lac as a activist and experimental place targeting artistic, economic and social perspectives.
https://www.lelac.info/
