Tous·tes dans une photo

Tous·tes dans une photo is an art en commun project carried out through a process of presence and production, with and for the residents of the Paris Habitat tower at 1 rue Martin Luther King, in the Larris neighborhood of Fontenay-sous-Bois.

The process began in September, at the moment of our arrival in the neighborhood. What struck us immediately was the overwhelming presence of shopping carts — abandoned or repurposed — scattered throughout the urban landscape. We customized one of them, transforming it into a mobile relational aesthetic device, a kind of moving medium for meeting residents in public space. This gesture aimed to engage with those we had not yet encountered in the associative space, which was the starting point of our on-the-ground exploration. During these strolls, we invited passersby to take part in small concentration exercises. These shared moments opened doors to collective memory and revealed the relational rhizomes of the neighborhood. Through this, we identified a core network of neighborly relationships that called for action — to strengthen participation in active citizenship and to foster a shared sense of responsibility.

The relational processes sparked by this artistic action unfolded in the interstices of the built environment — the liminal spaces between private and public: stairwells, hallways, thresholds. The goal: to create a shared memory among the residents of the tower. To this end, we invited everyone to step out into the balconies of one side of the building, in order to take a collective photograph — tous·tes dans une photo.

This gesture required those living on the opposite side of the tower to knock on a neighbor’s door and be welcomed onto their balcony — just for the time of a photo. Over the course of fifteen days, through my presence, hand-painted signs, short poems, and posters placed in hallways and at the thresholds of apartments, we transformed these transitional spaces into places of dialogue.

This action — almost performative in nature — allowed our proposition to transcend the ordinary dimension of these liminal zones. On May 31 at noon, the relational process reached its peak: some residents, by participating in the photograph, became co-authors of the work. The artwork thus became a tool, a pretext, a revealer: it accelerated and brought to light existing or latent relationships, helping to reinforce a sense of belonging to a shared territory.

We would like to thank all the residents of the tower at 1 rue Martin Luther King — those who showed themselves, on one side or the other of the building. This zero episode of Tous·tes dans une photo allowed us to bring more people closer to a commitment to active citizenship. It enabled us to reach places where neither associations nor cultural offerings usually succeed — inviting each person to nurture a more conscious, and less indifferent, relationship with the other.

Everybody in a photo