To make space for the world

Taking Cité internationale des arts as the starting point, "To make space for the world" proposes a wider reflection on how contemporary artists address the promises, contradictions and afterlives of cultural internationalism, a form of exchange, action, and solidarity that extends beyond national frameworks.

Bringing together 16 artists from 15 different countries (in residence between 2003 and the present day), the exhibition presents the relation to borders, known as the international, not as a settled value, but as something lived unevenly: a daily process of negotiation, translation, hospitality and forced displacement for many; a structure of opportunity, but also of dependence; a promise that could orient artists powerfully, while never entirely escaping the political and cultural asymmetries of the world around it.

Some artists propose horizontal forms of gathering: carnival and caravan as metaphors of exchange and safe harbor, song as the promise of return amidst annihilation, or matrilineality as an alternative social structure. Other projects remind us of art as a temporary refuge from grief and trauma, a suturing of wounds physical and symbolic, or a herald of hidden histories coming home to roost.