En jeu (In game)

Initiated by artist-designer Gabriel Fontana, En Jeu (In game) explores the links between art, sport and popular education through a co-creation project carried out with two Year 10 classes at Jolimont middle school. From February to May 2026, pupils will take part in a series of workshops led by the artist, accompanied by associations and artistic contributors.

Over the course of six sessions, these pupils will be invited to examine sporting practices and their societal dimension, to reinvent norms, question gender roles and imagine new models of society, some of which may be utopian or dystopian. Drawing on the interrelationships between sport and democracy, they will design new games, create slogans, team logos and trophies, and reflect on the spaces where these practices could exist, from the playing field to the sports bar.

This project is supported by Francas, a popular education association, to explore the imagination of sport. Screenwriter Meryem-Bahia Arfaoui will contribute to the creation of slogans, while the association Le Parti will help design the trophies.

This residency will conclude at the end of May 2026 with a major tournament in the courtyards of Les Abattoirs, where secondary school pupils will test, choreograph and compete in the sports and systems they have imagined.

En Jeu (In game) is part of the monographic exhibition dedicated to Gabriel Fontana, presented at Les Abattoirs in December 2026.

Educational challenges

The facilitators will ensure that a supportive, encouraging and non-judgmental environment is created in order to work on the following popular education issues: combating discrimination, strengthening one's capacity for action, combining the personal with the political, speaking out and debating, developing artistic skills, discovering creative professions, learning through experience and promoting social cohesion.

Gabriel Fontana

With his social design studio combining art, sport and alternative teaching methods, Gabriel Fontana is literally redefining the rules of the game. A graduate of the École supérieure d'art et de design de Saint-Étienne and the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, he advocates a cross-disciplinary approach to design at the intersection of visual and performing arts.

This practice questions the way in which our bodies internalise and reproduce norms of gender, identity and power.

With sport as his main subject of research, he invites us to reclaim sports spaces and reinvent their uses in an inclusive way. His approach thus integrates the design of spaces and objects, but also games, choreography, workshops and discussions. Beyond the practice of sport itself, Gabriel Fontana also invites us to rethink our spaces and equipment.

With the support of the City of Toulouse as part of the City Contract.

Workshops

Workshop 1: Introduction to alternative sports
Thursday 12 February (1.30pm-4pm) and Friday 13 February (1pm-3.30pm)

Gabriel Fontana invites students to play two new team sports he has developed, Multiform and Alliances Anonymes. Playing together allows the class to discuss and reflect in a tangible way on their relationships with each other, with the group, with their bodies, and on the processes of inclusion and exclusion.

Speakers: Gabriel Fontana and Les Francas

Workshop 2: Inventing new worlds
Thursday 12 March (10:20am-12:20pm) and Friday 13 March (1pm-3pm)

During this workshop, each group of students will be given a scenario of a fictional society, sometimes utopian or dystopian, from which they will invent an imaginary sports federation that represents that country. The different sports federations they invent must reflect the cultural, political and social principles of the given country. This workshop encourages students to question the ways in which sport influences and is influenced by society, whatever form it takes.

Speakers: Les Francas

Workshop 3: Reinventing sports slogans
Thursday 26 March (10:20am-12:20pm) and Friday 27 March (1pm-3pm)

This workshop aims to question the social values conveyed by sports chants in stadiums, in particular how they often reflect racist, sexist and homophobic ideas. In response to this, students will invent new slogans that express ideas in a powerful and rhythmic way.

Speaker: Meryem-Bahia Arfaoui, director and artist.

Workshops 4 and 5: Trophy creation
Thursday 2 April (10:20am-12:20pm), Friday 3 April (1pm-3pm), Thursday 9 April (10:20am-12:20pm) and Friday 10 April (1pm-3pm)

During these workshops, students will work on creating alternative trophies for their teams. This exercise encourages teenagers to question the binary classification of traditional sports, which usually categorise bodies as winners or losers. By subverting the logic of performance, hierarchy and competition, these trophies challenge the implicit norms that govern our relationship with merit, success and others. In response to this, these ‘anti-trophies’ celebrate the values that are at stake in the new sports developed by Gabriel Fontana: empathy, solidarity and collaboration.

Speakers: Le Parti, artist collective

Workshop 6: Tournament
May, date to be confirmed

This presentation of the project will showcase and put into action the trophies, slogans and new sports games developed by the pupils in connection with the history they have been working on. As with the first workshop, this event will combine action and reflection and will consist of games, debates and collective reflection.

Speakers: Gabriel Fontana, Meryem-Bahia Arfaoui and Les Francas