One of the most prestigious and highest acclaimed event in the yearly Paris event calendar is the art focussed Nuit Blanche on the first Saturday in October. It has been running since 2002, featuring a specific topic every year. The 2015 editions theme “Atmosphère ? … Atmosphère !” focusses on climate, climate change and is to be understood as an artistic interpretation of the 21st UN climate conference COP21 taking place 7-8th december.
Of course that did not save me from knowing, but not thinking of the date until the Friday late evening.
Featuring several hundred exhibitions, installations and concerts on the main routes in Paris, the center and the ile de france, visiting all is absolutely not possible. Thankfully there is a few predefined routes within the city, being easily followed with a map and attended by staff on several stations.
The route north starting at Gare du Nord and splitting then into a route to east or west towards Parc Monceau seemed most appealing to me. I was absolutely not alone with this idea.
Walking by Gare de l’Est the first station is the Berlin Wall Art project, which is not actually part of the Nuit Blanche, but an independent exibition featuring painters from the Berlin Wall.
On the first outside stations people could spread out, but the light installation in the Fire Station at the corner of Rue Phillippe de Girard and Rue de l’Aqueduc had two queues, each over 100m long.
Instead a look on the nearby water / light installation named BIT.FALL of Julius Popp seemed a much nicer idea. It’s also featured on the cover of the official program and flyer and nicely setted on the bridge of Rue de l’Aqueduct.
The idea to “print” buzzwords and short sentences by using falling water with light is as simple (not meaning the technical execution) as the effect is impressive. Handing out waterproof ponchos known from music festivals people could walk through the installation, or mainly kids dance through it.
Further on towards north before the Centre Sportif Micheline Ostermeyer there was again a queue, this time moving quite fast. Sadly I couldn’t really make a connection with the installation ROSE supposedly showing the relation between humanity and the universe. I was not alone with that feeling, but the lights arranged in stars at least produced a nice visual effect on digital cameras.
Going on avoiding inside happenings seemed to be the way, but I have to be honest, another 40min queue for the next attraction made me give up and go for a beer someplace else.
Next year with more pre-work and organisation.