Acts of Crossing, the first residency cycle in 2023, posed a simple question: how does it feel to cross the Périphérique?
The Boulevard Périphérique is a crucial infrastructure linking various territories that suffer from the lack of public transport. At the same time, this infrastructure is perceived as a symbolic barrier between Paris and the so-called banlieues. In this sense, several competing visions about the future of the Boulevard Périphérique are emerging today. Some imagine the introduction of pedestrian and cycle paths, while others call for its total demolition, and others still fight to keep it as an automotive infrastructure.
In this context we invited Jonathan Steiger, Myrto Delimichali, and Studio Inscape to spend a week crossing the Périphérique along its northern edge: by foot along the canal, by train between Paris and their temporary home in Saint Denis, following new green infrastructures along its banks. Together with aa group of Parisian amateur dancers led by choreographer Rafael Alvarez, they hiked through the Porte de la Chapelle, one of its most vast junctions. They heard from urbanist Magda Maaoui about the boulevard’s overlapping impacts on the surrounding environment, and with design researcher Ghassan Salameh connected it to struggles for quietness in Beirut. They met planners from Plaine Commune—the municipality bordering Paris to the north—to discuss new visions for motorway infrastructures. At the Chapelle Charbon park they learned from opera director Alexandra Lacroix, about how the crafts of the stage could act as methodologies for urban research. Urbanist Fani Kostourou led them in an experiment in creative cartographies.
In a second week in Paris a month later, the three residents staged their own crossings of the Périphérique, and were hosted by artist Lamine M. at the Villa Dionysos in Saint Denis to discuss their experiences with local citizens.
