Le 6B

Named for its address in St-Denis, a traditionally industrial and low-income suburb on the outskirts of the captial, Le 6B is both an association and a space to gaze on the current face of creative art.

As Julian Beller, an architect and the association’s president, explains, it started with 35 local creatives, all of whom were in need of a space to work and a means to survive. They pooled their meagre resources and took up in an abandoned office block — which seven years later has grown into an exhibition space, a place to work and a place where many of them live.

The 170 residents include artists, architects, DJs, painters, musicians, filmmakers, graphic designers and craftsmen.

Beller speaks earnestly about the struggle of young artists and how “the project is an illustration of the possibility of doing something with all this energy; a symptom of the changing world”.

“This way of doing it and trying to experiment is shining,” he says. “Now when we organise an event we have 3 000 people coming.”

The exhibitions change frequently. My visit included an encounter with a weird cloud formed of chicken wire, dangling from a ceiling in a dark room. As I entered, I was handed a torch by the artist himself. He stayed silent. Shine the light, I understood, and collaborate with us in this art.