parisbynumbers.com

‘Nuit Blanche‘ is an all-night urban arts festival that takes place in Paris every year on the first Saturday of October.

There’s no true English translation for Nuit Blanche: literally ‘White Night’, it’s the French phrase for staying up until the early hours - and the official Nuit Blanche festival sees the streets of Paris throng with life from 7pm until 7 in the morning.

While the exact programme of events changes every year, many major museums and civic buildings and remain open to the public (and illuminated) throughout the night, and many locations normally off limits to the public open their doors. Over the past few years private mansions, warehouses, artists studios, even railway depots have hosted concerts, performances, and often very bizarre contemporary art installations.

Certainly it’s the art that now proves the focus for the whole event, with local artists, and indeed local communities, often competing to display the most vibrant and eclectic installations on (and off) their streets. Past years have seen soundscapes at Montmartre and performance art on the Eiffel Tower. In 2002, hacker collective the Chaos Computer Club backlit more than 500 windows of the Bibliotheque Nationale tower to create the world’s largest video screen – and broadcast games of tetris across the city.

In short, when it works, it works really well. Find the right district and you’ll find projections, video installations, sculpture and even inpromptu musical performances all within close proximity. But over the last few years Nuit Blanche has proved a hit-and-miss affair: enormous queues at many of the event locations have frustrated more than a few festival-goers, and the limited metro and bus service is always packed to capacity.

Paris’ first Nuit Blanche, in 2002, was overshadowed by the stabbing of the City’s Mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, by mentally-ill assailant Azedine Berkane. While his injuries weren’t life threatening, Mayor Delanoe was hospitalised for two weeks after the attack, which took place in front of hundreds of festival-goers in the Paris City Hall. The last few years’ events have proved somewhat less dramatic, and indeed the Nuit Blanche concept has now spread to several other cities around the world, including Toronto, Rome and Madrid.

The date of Paris’ Nuit Blanche 2008 is Saturday 4th October.

Nuite Blanche Official Site
Photos from last year (2007)