Art Collectives Are Taking Over in Paris’ Suburbs

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As rising prices drive artists out of many major cities across the world, the city of artists is experiencing some unexpected growth.

Around Paris’s banlieues, a few ambitious artists and craftsmen have begun reclaiming areas considered, until recently, to be wastelands. Places like La Halle Papin, a former tire factory, are being converted into arts collectives and shared workshops for artists like Franck Cardinal, founder of the group SOUKMACHINES, which finds abandoned warehouses and transforms them into cultural centers.

This is part of a greater move in the area to turn the suburb of Pantin into an ecological neighborhood, using places like agricultural center La Cité Fertile as jumping-off points for the initiative. This is great news for Paris, as it not only promotes sustainability and creativity, but it could looks towards a revitalization of areas long ignored or forgotten by those in the city center.

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