MARIANNE MARTIN

« Marianne Martin is a figure. A voice, a body, and a mask. Marianne Martin is a character. Marianne Martin is a performance. And Marianne Martin is carrying out her mission: to shape the French national body of tomorrow.

Marianne Martin gives you your first lesson in cultural appropriation. She provides the keys to understanding for those who are trying to become French. And today, in the present of this fiction not far from our reality, to become French, you must pass the EUC48 exam—APC: Cultural Appropriation.

“With this exam, the naturalization process goes further; it’s no longer just about proving that you know France—you must have made it your own. France must exist through you; you must be intimately and subjectively transformed by the French nation in order to belong to it. Here, you must change your body.”

During this first class, determined to lead by example—Marianne Martin, a kind-hearted person and advocate of innovative teaching methods—she will take this test live in front of her audience, who will serve in turn as both her students and her panel of judges. And in doing so, she will attempt to regain the French citizenship she has put on the line.
The topic is drawn. She will have to demonstrate that she has embraced the Republic’s guiding principle: Liberty! Armed with her secret weapon for the exam—the painting *Liberty Leading the People*—she is ready to assert that every fiber of her artistic being resonates with French spirit.

But she—who knows art, who loves France’s humanist and universalist values, who respects French culture—she, Marianne Martin, will come up against what defines art, just as it defines the nation: the framework and its boundaries... »