Invitation to the 19 is a podcast produced by Duuu Radio in partnership with 19 Crac, Centre régional d’art contemporain de Montbéliard.

Fanfare, harmonie (concert band), banda… These different types of orchestras are often hard to tell apart. Their classification is based on the instruments that make them up and the musical repertoire they perform. German artist Annika Kahrs, however, chooses to approach the question from a different angle: she is interested in the political, social, industrial, and demographic role of these ensembles. Since 2024, she has been traveling across Europe—Italy, Switzerland, and then France—to make a trilogy of films at the intersection of visual arts, music, and sociological research, seeking to offer answers to these questions.

Invited by Adeline Lépine to draw inspiration from the ecosystem of the Pays de Montbéliard, Annika Kahrs became interested in the history of the automotive industry in the region, embodied by the iconic family business Peugeot, whose historical, cultural, economic, and social influence has reshaped much of the territory.

In the early 2020s, the disappearance of the PSA group, absorbed by Fiat Chrysler within Stellantis, profoundly reshaped the local economic fabric and weakened the entire network of associations, cultural groups, and sports clubs that had grown up around it. It is in this context that the Harmonie du Personnel Peugeot Citroën began its own transformation. Renamed Harmonie de Sochaux, it now places the transmission of knowledge at the heart of its project and is exploring new avenues for development, embracing the momentum of reinvention sweeping across the whole territory.

The film L’Harmonie du Personnel and the exhibition of the same name, presented in summer 2026 at 19, Crac, are the result of work carried out jointly by the artist Annika Kahrs and her team, the members of the Harmonie de Sochaux, the Centre d’archives de Terre Blanche / Fonds de dotation Peugeot pour la mémoire de l’histoire industrielle in Hérimoncourt, and the art center’s team.

Listen to the podcast here

Editing and mixing: Mathias Dupaquier
Duration: 9 minutes 35 seconds
Photo credit: 19, Crac

Video recap of the concert-showcase co-designed with the Conservatoire du Pays de Montbéliard.
For the second time at Le 19, Crac, and coordinated by Keiko Murakami, students from the “Sound Exploration around Tierkreis” module explore contemporary art and contemporary music. Using their instruments, they experiment with the sounds of everyday objects, in resonance with the works featured in Silvana Mc Nulty’s exhibition Le vide en main (Emptiness in Hand).

A valuable collaboration between two cultural institutions emblematic of the Pays de Montbéliard.

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Interview with Benoit Résillot about his participation in the film Le milieu est bleu by Ulla von Brandenburg at Le 19, Crac.

Performer, dramaturg and theatre professor, Benoit Résillot takes part in Ulla von Brandenburg’s work, currently on show at Le 19, Crac until 3 May. Asked about his involvement in the piece, Benoit tells us about his encounter with the artist, his various levels of participation in the project, and concludes by giving us several good reasons to come and see this richly colourful film with its strong humanist values.

Watch the video here

Duration: 3 minutes
Photo credit: 19, Crac
excerpts: Shadow Play, and Le milieu est bleu by Ulla von Brandenburg

Interview with artist and teacher Keiko Murakami about her students’ concert from the Sound Exploration module, held during the 2026 Spring Festival at Le 19, Crac.

Keiko has been teaching modern and early flutes at the Conservatoire du Pays de Montbéliard since 2022. On Saturday, March 28, 2026, four of her students take over the exhibition Le vide en main by Silvana Mc Nulty to explore the notions of matter, space and perception. Drawing inspiration from the artist’s works, the students examine their relationship to the various sounds that everyday objects can produce, as well as the gestures that result from their use.

Watch the video here

Duration: 2 minutes 40 seconds
Photo credit: Le 19, Crac – Silvana Mc Nulty © ADAGP, Paris, 2026

Sandbox Exhibitions
by Adeline Lépine-Delaborde

Between 2025 and 2026, our director Adeline Lépine-Delaborde contributed to the development of Volume 4, Exhibition as Method, of the online journal Metode with an essay on our so-called “sandbox” summer exhibitions.

Metode publishes essays in the fields of art and architecture. The platform is organized by ROM for kunst og arkitektur. Each new volume begins with an open call for contributions, followed by nine months of collective writing and peer review involving the ten or so selected authors.

Metode is led by Ingrid Halland (Editor-in-Chief), Gjertrud Steinsvåg (Project Director), and Solveig Tjetland (Editorial Assistant). The 2026 authors were also supported by Björn Nilsson and Karoline Kjesrud.

The ten essays included in Exhibition as Method approach exhibition-making as a practice that unfolds over time and continues well beyond the closing of the display moment—particularly through its relationships to places, people, artists, and audiences.

In the essay Sandbox Exhibitions, the aim is to show how the summer exhibitions at 19, Crac function as mediators between the art center and its environment—between people, ideas, and objects (artworks, but not only). It explores how these exhibitions become situations that reveal, activate, and regenerate the institution’s social and historical relationships to its context and its users.

Read Metode volume 4
Read Sandbox Exhibitions

Photo credit: Installation by fem_arc, Hosting Space, Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2023, photos by Runa Hallerker, Sketches by Maike Statz.