Paris gears up for 13th Nuit Blanche all-night festival
Paris is bracing for a sleepless night on Saturday as the 13th annual Nuit Blanche is set to take participants on an all night multi-venue escapade through artistic installations and performances.
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From 8pm Saturday to 7am Sunday, Nuit Blanche – which literally means “white night” – will feature over 150 artistic works that will take participants on an artistic hike through primarily the southern part of the city.
The organisers have created a circuit – dubbed the “Grande Randonée Artistique” –that is marked by a blue line on the pavement.
Inside all-night revellers can visit attractions from the City Hall (Hotel de Ville) to Montparnasse to the Gare d’Austerlitz and over the Petite Ceinture, a defunct railway line since 1939 that has seen parts of it be converted into a walking path and park.
At Parc Monstouris, in the 14th arrondissement the HeHe collective – Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen – will turn an ordinary tree into a bioluminescent one under ultraviolet light.
The purpose is to urge viewers to reflect on what is human-made and natural and as it will be set in the last artificial park created by Napolean III, the question has even more depth.
Inside the City Hall, Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto will draw on the ground using salt while outside Moroccan artist Hicham Berrada will use large beakers – normally found in scientific laboratories – to project large images of chemical reactions onto video screens.
London’s United Visual Artists will also run a not-to-miss installation with trip hop group Massive Attack that will use 46 sound-emitting columns and lights to react to the movements of the audience.
Founded in 2002, Nuit Blanche has been replicated in a number of cities worldwide.
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