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Nuit Blanche: The Night When Paris Became An Art Gallery

The annual White Night event left me dazzled

William Sidnam
7 min readOct 14, 2022
« Spectre » by Mariona Benedito et the Cube.BZ collective (Photo by William Sidnam)

Nuit Blanche is an annual arts festival that takes place in Paris and other cities around the world. One night a year, art galleries, churches, bars and other institutions open their doors to the public, turning cities into de facto art galleries.

As I had never participated in Nuit Blanche before — at least not in Paris, where it first began in 2002 — I was curious to check it out. But as I soon realised, it was going to be impossible to see everything. There were so many events happening around the city that I had to choose which district to focus on. As most of the interesting events seemed to be happening in the 4th arrondissement, I decided to focus on that area. But before the 4th, there was something in the 11th that had caught my attention.

Not a Satanic ritual (Photo by William Sidnam)

I took line 1 of the metro and headed to the 11th arrondissement in the east of Paris. This particular event was in a warehouse-looking bar with a high ceiling, exposed walls and metal frames. It looked almost like an abandoned railway station, minus the usual tracks on the ground. A young woman was playing an…

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William Sidnam
William Sidnam

Written by William Sidnam

New Zealand creative based in Paris. Advertising copywriter & photographer with 3 Medium Staff Picks. Documenting metro posters at www.instagram.com/metrotears/

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