Opening: Friday, June 9, at 6:30 pm
Exhibition/Event dates: June 10 to July 29, 2023 / September 1 to 28, 2023

La Plate-Forme, a contemporary art laboratory in Dunkirk, has invited Jean Attali to curate an exhibition featuring elements primarily derived from “L’Atlas mondial des villes” (World Atlas of Cities), a collective work created in architecture schools (ENSA Paris-Malaquais & ENSA Paris-Belleville). The exhibition project stems from a belief that maps present not only a graphical problem but also a plastic problem. The aspects of a territory cannot be presented in a uniform manner or solely according to the norms of conventional cartographic codification.

Today, the map invites us to exercise imagination and creativity; it must combat the impoverishment of its uses. It aspires to become an object, an installation: through its dimensions, the connections it establishes with other maps, the ways in which it is read and deciphered, and the inclination to seek within it a power of expression suited to our understanding of inhabited space.

The exhibition features several large-scale maps, each distinct in scale and graphic representation, yet together forming a powerful image of the internal differentiation processes that characterize the world of cities today. We take the gamble of placing these maps in an art space: the freedom of formats, scales, and modes of representation is conceived in the image of the multitude of urban cultures.