15 JULY – 13 AUGUST 2018

French artist Sébastien Jolivet has been developing his current project SPRING for over five years, producing images, models, photographs and installations that focus on his fascination with the gigantism and the enormity of Le Havre harbour, the second largest port in France. Jolivet has long been obsessed with this harbour, which is reflected in his artistic practice – the disproportion of its size and the scale of its machinery, and power plant and its first and foremost resource, coal. This industrial city, also the artist’s home town, is also the place where a much of Newcastle’s coal was transported to, over 17 000 kilometres away. 

In 2016, Jolivet was selected by the team of Jean-Blaise, Artistic Director of “A SUMMER IN LE HAVRE” to participate in the 500th anniversary of the founding of the town and the port. He, alongside 8 other local artists were chosen as La Bande des Havrais (The Band of Le Havre), and were given the opportunity to travel abroad as part of its residency program. Jolivet chose Newcastle as his destination, Australia’s largest coal export ports, which is also in very close proximity to the nearby Hunter Valley, one of Australia’s largest clusters of coal mines which has a direct link to his home town port. 

In early 2019, Jolivet will present SPRING in the exhibition Return of the Vast World alongside other members of The Band of Le Havre at the Museum of Modern Art (MUMA), Le Havre. Still questioning the global use of the fossil resource in his work, Jolivet has returned to Newcastle. Through a residency with The Lock-Up he continues to explore Newcastle and the Hunter Valley and the complexities of the port and the export of coal.