In the Banlieues/Centering the Margin: Saint-Denis/Oakland

The first in a series of international exhibitions focused on the margins and suburbs of France and the United States, In the Banlieues/Centering the Margin: Saint-Denis/Oakland will be presented during the summer of 2022 in the cities of Paris, Saint-Denis, San Francisco, and Oakland. Whatever you call them — suburbs, peripheries, banlieues — cities like Oakland, California, and Saint-Denis, France, are today exerting their influence and inventing solutions to challenges posed by equity and the rapid urban development of metropolitan areas. This exhibition highlights a symbolic pivot as artistic movements, social struggles, and urban innovations have begun to emerge from the peripheries, and not just from metropolitan centers.

In the words of June Grant and Laure Gayet, co-curators of the exhibition, “Bringing together a hybrid corpus of images, archives, models, paintings, artistic installations, objects, and videos, this exhibition explores cultural and inhabitant practices in urban planning. They are composed of places, people, and stories, drawings – far from clichés - portraits of composite urban areas on the peripheries. There is an urgency, today, to recognize and understand the day-to-day experiences of those who live, work and create in our cities.”

The exposition is co-produced by the Pavillon de l’Arsenal; the Villa Albertine in San Francisco and California Humanities ; in partnership with SPUR San Francisco, la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Paris Nord; with the support of the foundation 836M, l’Institut Français, la Fondation Art Explora; in collaboration with the cities of Oakland and Saint-Denis, Périféeries and with the participation of ARTE.

Generously sponsored by the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.