Paris des vi(ll)es. Public Intimacies

Curators: Scénos Urbaines, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, assisted by Simona Dvorák
Artists: Bruno Carpentier, Sélima Chibout, Saad Eltinay, Catherine Facerias, Nathalie Harb, Inssa Hassna, Djodjo Kazadi, Jeanne-Tara Kichenassamy-Rapielle, Léopold Lambert, Vicente Lesser, Sandra Madi, Gabriela de Matos, Cara Michell, Androa Mindre Kolo, Mega Mingiedi Tunga, Oliver Musovik, Lasseindra Ninja, Léonce Noah, Efrin Özyetiş, Marielle Pelissero, Scénos Urbaines, Sello Pesa, Rester.Étranger, Ika Ryu, Beatriz Santiago Munoz, Kristina Solomoukha + Paulo Codeluppi + Barbara Manzetti, Samuel Suffren, Ika Yuliana

“Paris des vi(ll)es. Public Intimacies” unfolds across residencies, an exhibition and performative events in urban spaces. Organised by the Cité internationale des arts in partnership with Scénos Urbaines, the project asks a central question: Is Paris a hospitable city? Through multi-disciplinary and speculative approaches, artists and curators explore the future of the city and the place of art within it, situating the inquiry in the heart of the Marais, a site marked by both heritage and contemporary urban issues.

Celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2025, the Cité internationale des arts functions as an “All-World island”, hosting over 300 artists annually from across disciplines and nationalities. Here, artists confront Paris in its complexity: Notre Dame and migrant shelters, gentrification and contested public spaces, celebrations of diversity and the exclusions they mask. Since 2002, Scénos Urbaines has engaged these themes through multi-disciplinary residencies in cities such as Douala, Alexandria, Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Dakar, Port-au-Prince, Conakry and Strasbourg.

The project unfolds in two phases. Between August and October 2025, fifteen resident artists will work collectively on the question of what Paris is today, often perceived as open and inclusive yet marked by tensions. From October 8, 2025, the exhibition presents the results of this dialogue—installations, performances and interventions that reflect on the city as both stage and lived environment.

The featured artists span multiple generations, geographies and practices, from urban performance to architecture, from installation to choreography. Their works map forms of public intimacy, where the social fabric of the city becomes visible through shared gestures, narratives and encounters. Together, they propose a new cartography of Paris: fragmented, porous and profoundly human.