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Nuit Blanche: The Night When Paris Became An Art Gallery
The annual White Night event left me dazzled
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.
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…