Shaping a vocabulary
Houdremont cultural centre in La Courneuve

This cultural centre is unique in that its work encompasses contemporary theatre, circus, dance, juggling, and the arts of movement. The idea was to focus on simple shapes –juggling balls, circles and squares– which are grouped together and made to dance. And to extract the lines, crosses and strips from the urban environment that form horizontals and verticals in streets, low-rise buildings and urban furniture.

As part of his work as artist in residence at the cultural centre, Malte Martin distilled a visual vocabulary for the venue’s graphic identity. The yellow circles symbolise Houdremont’s role as a welcoming community space and form a dotted line that runs through the programme, posters and flyers. The blue balls are depicted as three-dimensional to represent the juggling centre housed there, and can be formed in different materials and carry on their dance in space ad infinitum.