Photo : Malala ANDRIALAVIDRAZANA, Figures 1876, Planisphère Elémentaire, 2018 ©Julien Vidal
"Who lives here?", an exhibition on the Pont Saint-Ange
Forget your usual fast-paced commute across the bridge and let yourself get lost in this unexpected open-air gallery. By placing striking contemporary works amidst the urban flow, the exhibition turns every passerby into an art explorer, revealing hidden human stories behind our familiar city streets.
Pont Saint-Ange (Paris 18th)
About
The Saint-Ange bridge in the 18th arrondissement transforms into an open-air art gallery with the exhibition Qui habite ici ?. Running until January 22, 2028, this showcase features 51 reproductions from the Fonds collection, created by 48 different artists. This free event turns a daily transit route into a space for contemplation, inviting visitors to reflect on our relationship with the city and its inhabitants through eight distinct themes. The entire exhibition is fully accessible to wheelchair users, as well as those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or living with cognitive disabilities.
Featuring 51 reproductions of works from the Fonds collection, the exhibition brings together 48 artists. Each reproduction is accompanied by a placard presenting the work and its artist, providing visitors with keys to interpretation and allowing them to discover the richness of the Fonds collection. Throughout the path, the Pont Saint-Ange transforms into an open-air gallery. An invitation to slow down, look up, and rediscover Paris through the eyes of artists, in a place of transit that also becomes a place for encountering contemporary art.
The exhibition is displayed in eight thematic itineraries that explore the notion of the city:
- Places: before being inhabited, places are landscapes shaped by humans. Whether panoramic views or fragments of the city, these photographs show spaces where human presence is subtle, but always suggested.
- Buildings: designed to be inhabited, traversed, or shared, whether full or empty, old or modern, they bear the marks of their occupants. Behind facades and windows, human presence can be guessed, even when invisible.
- Uses: the same places can be experienced in multiple ways: working, waiting, observing, gathering, sharing a meal, celebrating, or traveling. These uses reveal the diversity of experiences that intersect in shared space.
- Presences: cities are primarily made of those who traverse them, inhabit them, or meet there. Sometimes visible, sometimes anonymous or fleeting, these presences give the places their identity and remind us that every space is, first and foremost, a human story.
- Bodies: protected, transformed, adorned, repaired, or imagined, they tell a singular story. These photographs evoke different ways of being in the world through bodies that carry the traces of an identity, a function, a culture, or a transformation.
- Illusions and Utopias: these landscapes blur boundaries. Real or imagined, possible or improbable, they invite us to look at the city differently. Between fiction, dream, and anticipation, they open the door to other ways of inhabiting the world.
- Objects: they accompany our daily lives, whether simple or symbolic, they testify to our habits, our dreams, and our contradictions. In their own way, they also tell the story of the society we are building.
- Traces: places hold the memory of those who have passed through them. Imprints, hospital rooms, body fragments, or vanished silhouettes: these images reveal the marks, visible or invisible, that human beings leave behind.
Our take on this event
Located on the Saint-Ange bridge, this artistic project occupies public space in the 18th arrondissement to display a selection of contemporary works. From October 24, 2026, to January 22, 2028, the bridge becomes an outdoor gallery where 51 reproductions by 48 artists mark your path. Each piece includes an informative label to guide you through your exploration of the Fonds collection.
The display is organized into eight thematic itineraries that examine the city and its human dynamics: places, buildings, usages, presences, bodies, illusions and utopias, objects, and traces. This structure encourages you to view the urban environment not merely as architecture, but as a space filled with lived experiences, social interactions, and individual memories.
The exhibition is free and designed with inclusivity in mind: access is suitable for wheelchair users, and the content is adapted for visitors who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have cognitive disabilities.
