audenciaculture@gmail.com

Neo-Chinese Aesthetic: The Business Strategy Behind Cultural Re-Export

Mode, Réflexions13 janvieraudenciaculture@gmail.com

The concept of « New Chinese Style » was proposed by the renowned Chinese architect Liang Sicheng. Initially, it was mainly applied in the field of architecture. With the rise of the « national style », the style of « New Chinese Style » is no longer limited to the field of architecture; it also has applications in accessories and clothing.

The interpretation garden of traditional Chinese style culture in the current era background is contemporary design based on a full understanding of contemporary Chinese culture. The « New Chinese Style » is not just a collection of traditional elements but combines modern elements with traditional elements through an understanding of traditional culture to create things with traditional charm, allowing traditional art to be appropriately reflected in today’s society.

This article aims to reveal a rarely-discussed perspective: « New Chinese style » is far more than just a cultural phenomenon; it is a business strategy actively designed and systematically promoted by capital (specifically referring to strategic venture capital institutions, large brand groups, and industrial capital). Its ultimate goal is to complete the modernization « translation » of Chinese culture and lay out replicable business model pipelines for its future « reverse export » to the global market.

Risk Management In Track Investment

People have always regarded capital as following the footsteps of culture. However, the opposite is true; it is capital itself that makes the choices and shapes this path.

Based on scientific discoveries and technological inventions, hard technology that has been accumulated over a long period of time. Its investment threshold is high and the cycle is also very long. Therefore, in order to seek certainty, capital has chosen the consumption and culture sectors. « New Chinese Style » is supported by the government, has the most mature global consumer goods supply chain, and can address the identity anxiety of the Z Generation. Capital has discovered that this is a sector with monopolized cultural discourse rights and controllable costs.

When it comes to building a brand, the most overlooked truth is that the product is just the entry point; what users truly purchase is the « better version of themselves » in their hearts. Producing physical goods is easy, but generating meaning is difficult. And « New Chinese Style » can transform cultural symbols into brand assets. For instance, a certain fragrance brand does not simply sell « the taste of the White Rabbit candy ». Instead, through packaging design, copywriting stories and the offline environment, it sells the unforgettable childhood memories that cannot be replicated. The significance of this series lies in its ability to be replicated, iterated and scaled by capital. This is precisely what capital values most – the scalable premium value.

All over the world, people have diverse cultural backgrounds and values, which directly influence consumers’ behaviors. Consumers in Europe and America may place greater emphasis on technological innovation and environmental protection concepts, while in the East Asian market, consumers may pay more attention to the practicality and price advantages of products. The « new Chinese style » localized marketing helps brands establish an emotional connection with local consumers. By using cultural symbols, a brand can establish a friendly image in the minds of consumers.In today’s world where globalization is facing setbacks, relying excessively on a single overseas market or a single cultural image poses risks.

On the special theme day of « Coexistence of Lines and Webs » at the China Pavilion of the World Expo, the finale was an Eastern aesthetic fashion presentation. Drawing inspiration from the charm of Tang Dynasty brocade and the bamboo patterns of the Song Dynasty, it delved into the essence of Eastern culture and incorporated traditional handicraft techniques such as hanging dyeing. In the dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetics, it reconstructed the clothing language that integrates the past and the present.

The « Narrative Engineering » Behind Marketing

The marketing of « New Chinese Style » is not only about advertising; it is a meticulous « narrative project ». Its professionalism is grossly underestimated by the general public.

Corporate social responsibility here is no longer a cost, but rather traditional cultural content materials and trust. Integrating traditional elements into art installations can help better preserve historical culture. Traditional art can be reinterpreted and presented in new ways. This is the unique cultural and artistic charm of intangible cultural heritage that interprets the current trend of installation art, driving the continuous innovation and upgrading of intangible cultural heritage. The application of traditional materials is transformed into a practical implementation of the « sustainable oriental philosophy ». This achieves two goals: externally, it meets the ESG investment standards and the moral aesthetic standards of consumers; internally, it establishes a supply chain barrier and cultural authorization authenticity that is difficult for competitors to imitate.

This « Art Museum Night » product appreciation event is not only a cultural feast, but also a profound dialogue between tradition and modernity, the past and the future. It allows everyone to quietly experience the collision of classic and fashion, and the new charm is once again perceived through its inheritance and preservation.

The exhibition items include the « Art Museum Night » show products as well as the three major series of autumn humanistic urban and lifestyle products.

In recent years, more and more young people have been drawn into the world of traditional Chinese culture, such as experiencing intangible cultural heritage, participating in folk activities, visiting ancient buildings and other cultural tourism projects. These projects have continued to be extremely popular. Traditional culture is now being widely spread through social media and gradually reaching a wider audience. Brands’ selection of cultural elements is not based on simple intuition or feelings. Instead, they use social media popularity analysis and e-commerce search term databases to conduct « data mining of cultural elements ». Which historical figures have a « fan creation » foundation among young communities? Which ancient poems and sentences are more likely to trigger social dissemination? The data analysis results directly guide product development and content creation. The so-called « cultural revival » is actually a set of algorithm-recommended « high-potential cultural IP lists ».
The offline stores of « New Chinese Style » brands have long gone beyond being simply « places for shopping ». They are more like a comprehensive venue that integrates cultural experiences, social spaces and lifestyle, allowing consumers to immerse themselves in the charm of Chinese aesthetics while making purchases. They are designed as immersive theaters, serving as the physical conclusion of the brand’s narrative. Here, the space design, salesperson’s remarks, even the scents and background music, are all meticulously arranged, with the aim of completing the final experience and confirmation of the brand story by consumers. This is an aggressive innovation that completely transforms « retail » into « cultural service industry ».

Final goal: Build The Export Capability Of « Cultural Standards »

As China’s overall national strength continues to grow, Chinese culture is expected to achieve more extensive international dissemination within the next 20 to 50 years. Although this is a long and arduous process, with continuous efforts, one day « Guofeng »(A trend style that integrates elements of traditional Chinese culture with modern aesthetics, it represents cultural confidence and a love for Eastern aesthetics.) will be able to create a craze in the European and American markets just like Japanese culture has done. All these measures are aimed at a much broader and less spoken-about business objective: to participate in and lead the « standard-setting » of global lifestyles.

The concept of slow life advocated by « New Chinese Style » aligns perfectly with the current development trend of society. With the promotion of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, significant improvements in work efficiency will provide people with more leisure time. At that time, a slow-paced lifestyle that values enjoyment and quality will likely become the mainstream. And Chinese style can perfectly interpret this leisurely, elegant, and return-to-nature attitude towards life. A cup of tea, a piece of ancient music, and a set of simple and elegant clothing can create an atmosphere that complements the slow life. Just like how Nordic style defines minimalism and functionality, « New Chinese Style » attempts to define a contemporary Eastern philosophy of « finding tranquility in the midst of chaos and concealing clumsiness in technology ». This is no longer trade; it is the infrastructure output of cultural soft power.

Author: Guanrong Zhang

Book Covers: The end of a French cultural exception?

Littérature13 janvieraudenciaculture@gmail.com

*La Maison vide, Laurent Mauvignier, published by Les Editions Minuit*

On Tuesday, November 4, after a month of deliberations, the Goncourt Prize is finally announced. Almost immediately, bookshop windows fill with the same volume: a white cover, framed by a thin blue border, bearing only a few words: La Maison vide, Laurent Mauvignier. Yet, for some years now, something new has been added. A half-jacket in vivid red now wraps the book, subtly unsettling the quiet equilibrium of its pale, traditional tones.

This gesture, that can be seen as minor, in fact signals a deeper shift taking place within the French publishing industry. It reveals how even the most established symbols of the French literary tradition (sobriety and visual neutrality), are increasingly challenged by new aesthetic and commercial logics.

To understand the symbolism behind it, we must first consider the visual tradition that has shaped the identity of French literature for over a century. In France, the appearance of a book, its sobriety, has never been a matter of design, but a cultural code in itself.

The Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF), founded in 1908, quickly distinguished itself through an almost ascetic visual identity: a white cover with a red title, a restrained use of typography, and a refusal of ornamentation. This “graphic poverty”, as critics often describe it, was not due to a lack of imagination but a deliberate aesthetic ideology. It reflected the journal’s ambition to represent neutrality, dignity and a form of literary purity. This editorial position would profoundly shape the visual language of French publishing throughout the 20th century.

This tradition was later theorized by Gérard Genette in Seuils (1987), where he developed the influential concept of the “paratext”, being everything that surrounds the text itself including titles, covers, typography and even promotional elements. For Genette, the paratext serves as a threshold between the book and the reader: it announces, guides and in many cases helps sell the text. Yet in France, the commercial potential of the paratext has long been viewed with suspicion. Influential publishers aligned with the NRF tradition, such as Gallimard or Editions de Minuit, rejected visually pleasing or spectacular covers, associating them with market logics, seen as unworthy of high literature.

The adoption of the white cover across major publishing houses soon transformed it into a cultural norm. The choice of white was anything but neutral: it conveyed a sense of purity, intellectual prestige, and voluntary austerity in a country where visual restraint often signals good taste. From this point of view, literature was not supposed to seduce the reader through colour, illustration, or typography but through language alone. The cover’s silence, its refusal to speak, was part of the book’s cultural authority.

This position, implicitly elitist but fully assumed, created a clear boundary between what was considered legitimate literature and more popular or commercial genres. While science fiction, crime novels or romance novels embraced colour, imagery and expressive design, the French classical literature insisted on graphic minimalism to showcase cultural superiority. The white cover thus functioned as a marker of ideology of anti-market distinction, a way of saying “Here, we produce literature, not entertainment”.

However, the French ideology of visual austerity must be analysed in comparison with international publishing markets. In the Anglo-American publishing sphere, the function and status of the book cover have evolved according to radically different cultural and economic principles, where visibility, marketability and graphic identity play central roles. Examining this contrasting model offers a necessary point of view for understanding the pressures currently reshaping French editorial practices.

In the English-speaking world, where cultural and economic norms are shaped by competition, consumer visibility and strong marketing infrastructures, the book cover is not a secondary paratext but a central strategic tool. The book market is vast and highly competitive, simultaneous releases in numerous formats and genres are the norm. In such an environment, a cover must capture the reader’s attention in a matter of seconds. Visual seduction is not only accepted, it is expected.

This dynamic explains why marketing departments occupy a structural place within the editorial process. They can, at times, play a more important role than editors themselves, particularly in large American or British publishing groups where sales projections, target readers and visual positioning are decided before a book goes into production. In contrast with France, where covers are often designed internally or given to discreet designers, Anglo-American graphic designers enjoy significant visibility. Their names appear in trade publications, interviews, sometimes even on the book itself and many are recognized as creative figures in their own right.

*Birds of La Plata, W.H. Hudson, published by Penguin Books, designed by David Pearson*

An illustrative example is David Pearson, renowned designer for Penguin Books and a key figure of contemporary British cover design. Known for his minimalist yet expressive designs, Pearson exemplifies the status of the designer as an artist whose work goes beyond the book industry. His aesthetic has led him to collaborate with Wes Anderson on cinematic visual concepts, as well as with diverse companies such as Hermès, The New York Times or Christie’s. Such trajectories are emblematic of a cultural ecosystem where the book cover is considered an independent graphic object, not just a functional wrapper.

In this context, the cover functions as part of a broader marketing package: it must be visually striking and crucially photogenic. Its design is conceived to perform not only in bookstores but also on social media feeds, online retailers and digital recommendation platforms. The Anglo-American market cultivates a logic of visibility where the book must stand out and be shared.

Although merchandising practices do exist in France, they play a less determining role, especially for the so-called serious literature still governed by the cultural codes of sobriety and tradition. The Anglo-American model, by contrast, assumes that the success of a book starts with its capacity to be seen.

The Anglo-American emphasis on visibility, branding and graphic impact has begun to exert an influence on French publishing. While the white cover tradition remains strong, a growing number of publishers have started experimenting with colour, illustration and typographic creativity. These changes reveal a slow but significant shift, as French editors navigate the tensions between inherited visual austerity and the demands of a competitive, modern marketplace in mutation.

From the early 2000s onward, the French publishing landscape has undergone a gradual yet decisive visual transformation. A new generation of independent houses, creative, daring and experimental, has begun to challenge the long-standing dominance of the minimalist cover. What started as isolated initiatives has now become a broader cultural shift, reshaping the relationship between text and image in France.

The Actes Sud editions stands among the most influential pioneers of this shift. Early-on, the house adopted a distinctly modern visual signature: an elongated book format, high-quality textured paper and a carefully curated iconography. This approach showed that a literary work could maintain its seriousness while embracing a strong aesthetic presence. Other publishers, such as Le Tripode, have taken more freedom in their approach by tailoring each book visual identity to its author, atmosphere or narrative universe. Colours, illustrations and patterns are seen as extensions of the text rather than distractions from it.

*New covers of Zulma published books, designed by David Pearson*

But perhaps the most emblematic one is the case of Zulma. When the house commissioned British designer David Pearson to reinvent its visual identity, the shift was both radical and immediately successful. Pearson’s distinctive geometric patterns transformed each book into a recognisable part of the new artistic direction of the house. Within a few years, Zulma’s sales reportedly tripled, showcasing how a bold design strategy can revive a publisher’s image and widen its audience.

Beyond editorial creativity, technological changes have further accelerated this evolution. The rise of online book retail has introduced a new constraint: the cover must remain visible and readable even when reduced to a tiny digital thumbnail. With such conditions, overly bland designs tend to disappear visually, overshadowed by bolder competitors. Strong typography, high-colour contrast and distinctive patterns have thus become of new must-have elements of cover design. What was once a purely aesthetic choice has turned into a technical necessity.

*Terre des Hommes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, published by Graphic Gallimard and designed by Riad Sattouf*

These pressures have progressively pushed traditional French publishers to adapt. Coloured bands and half-jackets, once exceptional, are now the norm even among the most conservative literary houses. Prize-winning books are increasingly accompanied by visual emphasis and new collections aim to refresh classic titles with contemporary graphic interpretations. The creation of Gallimard Graphic, which reissues work in collaboration with prominent designers whose names are featured on the cover, exemplifies the institutional pivot.

This change is also driven by the expectations of a younger, globally exposed audience. To many new readers, the traditional white cover appears as cold, elitist and uninviting. The decline of the white aesthetic therefore also marks the decline of a symbolic frontier between expert readers and the general public. In this sense, the move toward more colourful, accessible designs may help democratise access to literature, reducing the intimidation once associated with the French classical literature.

Far from signalling the disappearance of a French cultural exception, the recent evolution of French book cover design reflects a process of renegotiation rather than rupture. White covers are still the norm for French traditional publishing houses. This restrained design, once a proclamation of literary purity and cultural distinction, is not being abandoned but recontextualised in a publishing environment that must navigate through global competition, digital visibility and the expectations of a younger readership. What results is not the triumph of one aesthetic over another but a more fluid market where tradition and innovation coexist.

This negotiation highlights a deeper problematic: how to redefine what cultural legitimacy looks like in the 21st century. By allowing colour, illustration and graphic experimentation into the realm of serious literature, the French publishing world is trying to answer this question. In this sense, by shifting from white minimalism to more expressive designs, French publishers do not reject tradition but rethink how it can continue to resonate in a world where the act of reading (and of choosing what to read) has itself profoundly changed.

Author: Justin Wiesler-Lambs

Beyond the Red Carpet: The Business of Film Festivals

Cinéma / TV, Réflexions15 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

In May 2023, I attended the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, thanks to a “cinéphile” accreditation that I obtained through Audencia’s film association Les Hallucinés. We were a group of ten students heading to one of the most famous cultural events in the world, and everything looked exactly like I had imagined. Red carpets, evening dresses, high heels, Hollywood stars, journalists, photographers, glitter everywhere, it honestly felt like stepping into another world. I was completely amazed.

Of course, watching celebrities wasn’t my only activity. I also broke my personal record: 15 films in five days. Seeing world premieres in the same room as critics, professionals and other film lovers is a feeling I will never forget. I returned in 2024 for the 77th edition, once again with my cinephile accreditation and ready for another intense week of screenings.

But everything changed in 2025. That year, I didn’t go to Cannes as a spectator, I went as an intern for a film distribution company. And suddenly, I discovered a completely different version of the festival. One that most people never see. I experienced the fast-paced world of the Marché du Film, the endless networking, the pressure to sell as many films as possible, to buy the most promising ones, and the reality of thirty meetings a day from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., followed by more work once the day was “officially” over.

Only the evenings offered a moment to breathe, and that’s when the glamour of Cannes came back: VIP invitations to premieres, parties organised by distributors, events in villas, private beach parties, even yachts. The contrast was surprising, almost surreal.

This mix of glamour and intense business made me want to write about the real nature of A-list film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin or Venice. Beyond the image and the glitter, what actually happens behind the scenes?
What do these festivals really represent for the film industry?

The Festival as a Cultural Showcase… and Also a Brand

Yet behind the spectacular and glamour façade of each festival lies something essential: the artistic mission of showcasing cinema. Category A festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin and TIFF) all share this goal, but each expresses it differently. Their awards reflect distinct artistic visions. At Cannes, the Palme d’Or is one of the highest distinctions in the film world. Winning it often guarantees an international career, long-term critical recognition, and sometimes even a place in film history. Cannes tends to highlight strong artistic statements, bold cinematic voices, and films linked to major contemporary auteurs.

The Venice Film Festival, with its Golden Lion, values narrative audacity and formal innovation. It is prestigious but also recognized for spotting unique, sometimes more experimental works. There is often a desire to push the limits of cinematic language.
Berlin stands out for its political and social orientation. The Golden Bear frequently goes to committed films that explore contemporary issues such as migration, minorities, inequality, or geopolitical tensions. Berlin positions itself as a meeting point between cinema and public debate, a place of reflection rather than spectacle.

Beyond the main awards, the richness of these festivals also lies in their many sections. At Cannes alone, audiences navigate between the Official Competition, Un Certain Regard, the Directors’ Fortnight, Critics’ Week, Cannes Classics, and the ACID programs. For cinephiles, it’s an endless playground: first features, restored films, independent cinema, and major international productions all coexist under one roof. This diversity allows many forms of global cinema to be seen and to gain exceptional visibility. Media-wise, each festival cultivates its own image. Cannes, by far the most publicized, leans into glamour. Its red carpet ritual is known worldwide and fuels social networks every year. Venice, more discreet but elegant, attracts those drawn to Italian charm and the refined atmosphere of the Lido. Berlin is less shiny but more oriented toward public access and sociopolitical engagement.

Over time, major festivals haven’t just become cultural events; they have turned into international brands : Cannes illustrates this perfectly : the golden palm, appears everywhere during the festival, on posters, tote bags, beach towels, T-shirts, and in official boutiques along the Croisette. This visual omnipresence strengthens a recognizable identity. Buying a Cannes tote bag is like bringing home a souvenir from the Louvre or a concert: it’s a symbol, a cultural marker.

Berlin has built a more engaged and accessible image, especially through its mascot, the bear, which appears on colourful, instantly recognizable posters. Venice, with its winged lion and Italian elegance, cultivates a more artistic, sophisticated, almost literary image.

These identities are deliberate: Cannes bets on absolute prestige; Berlin on diversity and engagement; Venice on artistic refinement.

The Golden Lion, the top award of the Venice Film Festival, for which socially and politically engaged filmmakers are once again competing this year. (© Alberto PIZZOLI/AFP)

The Golden Bear award for Best Film, pictured during a news conference after the awards ceremony at the 61st Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin February, 2011. @REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

Golden Palm 2024. ©Patrick Csajko

Brand strategies reinforce this positioning: partnerships, sponsors, hospitality programmes, and digital content. They don’t just finance events, they help shape the festival’s narrative. Today, festivals are no longer just places where films are screened. They are cultural and economic ecosystems that produce symbolic and commercial value.

Behind the Scenes: The Festival as an Industrial Machine

Discovering the Cannes Marché du Film from the inside completely changed how I saw the festival. Far from the cameras, the Palais des Festivals becomes a gigantic maze of stands on several floors. Production companies, international sales agents, distributors, VFX studios, and AI start-ups all cross paths there. Unlike the glamorous screenings, this space has nothing spectacular. You see tired professionals doing 25 or 30 meetings a day. Sellers present their catalogues; buyers compare, negotiate, and take notes. Market screenings help distributors evaluate films before acquiring rights.

Marché du film 2022, Cannes @ Loïc Thébaud

Berlin, Venice (to a lesser degree), and Toronto also have markets, but Cannes is by far the largest in the world. Many of the films that will later be released in cinemas or on streaming platforms are negotiated there.

Each actor plays a specific role: producers pitch projects, international sales agents sell territorial rights, and distributors buy films for release in their own countries. For instance, a French distribution company can also act as a sales agent abroad, offering a film to Spanish, Japanese, or American buyers. This parallel world is essential to the economic life of cinema. Without these markets, most films would never reach an audience.

Major festivals have become economic epicenters where international sales, pre-sales, co-production agreements, consulting deals, derivative rights, and even technological partnerships are negotiated. Cannes is a place where a film idea can find a co-producer, where a finished film can secure twenty foreign distributors, and where platforms like Netflix can spot their next hit.

Festivals aren’t just business spaces; they’re also places for networking and reputation-building.

Different accreditations (press, buyers, sellers, producers, students…) reflect the diversity of participants. Conferences, panels, masterclasses, and professional cocktails structure the days. People talk marketing, strategy, and communication, all within an environment where the festival’s prestige becomes a tool of influence.

Networking is central. Being present, being seen, being recognized sometimes matters as much as signing a deal. Festivals are spaces where reputations are shaped and professional relationships grow.

Festivals as Strategic Actors in the Global Film Market A film screened at Cannes, Berlin, or Venice doesn’t have the same trajectory as one released without a festival premiere. Festivals generate buzz, attract press, allow critics to position films, and help secure additional sales. Sirat by Oliver Laxe made headlines not just because it won a secondary prize, but because it was one of the most talked-about films of the festival. It created a huge buzz thanks to its extremely experimental approach. Many viewers described it as something they had never seen before, a film that takes risks, breaks narrative expectations, and constantly pushes the audience out of their comfort zone. It’s bold, disorienting, sometimes even shocking, and the fact that a work this unconventional was awarded at Cannes contributed even more to its visibility and impact. Yet it was the film that generated the most attention, far more than the official winner, Un simple accident by Jafar Panahi.
This is the power of festivals: they create narratives around films.

SIRAT, Oliver Laxe @ El Deseo/ Uri Films / 4 a 4 productions / Filmes Da Ermida / Los Desertores Films

A Simple Accident, Jafar Panahi @ Jafar Panahi Production / Les Films Pelléas / Bidibul Productions / Pio & Co / Arte France Cinema

There is also the idea of the “festival circuit”: some films travel from festival to festival, building an international career through selections and awards. This is a strategic path, crucial for their global distribution. Festivals remain key places for experimentation. Sections like Cannes XR or Venice Immersive show that the future of cinema also involves virtual reality and immersive technologies. Green practices are slowly emerging, even if progress is still needed. Streaming platforms (Netflix, Prime Video, MUBI) are now deeply embedded in film markets. Marketing strategies are shifting too: a simple “Official Selection” label on a poster can increase a film’s visibility.

Finally, moving from the role of an amazed spectator to that of a beginner professional taught me something essential: cinema is never just an art. It is also an industry, an economy, and an international network. Category A festivals reflect this dual nature perfectly. They are places where the magic of cinema meets the realities of the market. They feed the dream, the red carpet, premieres, prestige, but they are also spaces of intense work, strategic stakes, and decisive negotiations. Today, when I see a red-carpet walk on TV, I no longer look only at the dresses or the photographers. I think about everything happening behind the scenes: meetings in the Palais, tightly scheduled appointments, discreet negotiations that will determine where and how films will be seen around the world. Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto are not just cultural showcases. They are key players in the global film market, hybrid spaces where dream and industry coexist. And maybe this duality is what makes them so fascinating.

Author: Ana SOTOMAYOR

TV Series as a Reflection of Daily and Societal Anxieties

Cinéma / TV, Pop culture, Réflexions15 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

For a long time, TV series were perceived as simple entertainment. We watched them to pass the time, relax after a day’s work, or escape from the everyday. Today, this view is increasingly outdated. Some series no longer simply seek to entertain: they disturb, question, and sometimes leave the viewer with a profound sense of unease.

Contemporary series portray our world more than imaginary ones. They stage our fears, tensions, and contradictions. They show us what we experience collectively, but also what we feel internally, often without managing to articulate it. As such, they become genuine tools for social and psychological reflection.

Squid Game is a striking example of this. The end of the first season, when the game organizer turns out to be the old man and invites the main character to his deathbed to reveal the truth, goes far beyond a simple plot twist. The viewer understands that this extreme violence was merely entertainment for a few bored, wealthy figures, and that the old man created it because he had lost all hope in humanity, seeing people as devoid of morality. The main character, on the other hand, retains his faith in humanity, believing we should help each other instead of constantly destroying ourselves.

Similarly, The Bear, although much more realistic and intimate, provokes deep reflection. It doesn’t shock with violence, but with the constant tension and exhaustion it portrays. These two series, very different in form, nonetheless show the same thing: series are no longer just stories to watch from a distance; they have become experiences that affect us personally and collectively.

Today, series occupy a central place in our daily lives. They are part of our routines, our discussions, and our way of consuming culture. They are no longer just watched in a family setting or occasionally: they are « binge-watched, » analyzed, commented on social media, and sometimes even used as generational benchmarks. Certain lines, scenes, or characters become common references, shared far beyond the screen.

This success is also explained by the fact that series now take the time to develop over the long term. Unlike cinema, they can explore complex human trajectories, show the psychological evolution of characters, and dwell on the consequences of their choices. This extended temporality allows for deeper immersion and reinforces the emotional impact on the viewer. In this sense, series do not just tell a story; they accompany the viewer. They create a particular, almost intimate bond, which explains why certain works leave a lasting mark. When a series deals with anxiety, loneliness, or failure, it doesn’t do so abstractly : it shows it through concrete, recognizable situations close to our own experience.

The Fiction Closer to Reality

With the rise of streaming platforms, series have gained freedom. They can address darker, more complex subjects without necessarily trying to please everyone. They move away from simple and reassuring narratives to offer stories more rooted in reality. Television fiction has become a space where we talk about work, precariousness, loneliness, social pressure, and mental health. These themes, once secondary, are now central. Series no longer serve to escape reality but to observe and present it from another angle.

Another important point concerns the characters. Perfect heroes have almost disappeared. In their place, we find tired, lost individuals, often in conflict with themselves—heroes with flaws because they resemble us; they are profoundly human, which allows the viewer to project themselves and identify more easily.

In The Bear, Carmy is not a hero in the classic sense. He is brilliant but unstable, demanding, and sometimes unbearable. In Squid Game, the characters often make morally questionable choices, dictated by fear or despair. These imperfect figures make the narrative more realistic and more unsettling.

Two Forms of Anxiety, But a Single Humanity

Squid Game stages extreme, almost absurd violence. Yet, this violence is not gratuitous. It serves to represent a world where individuals are trapped in a system of permanent competition. The game participants are not monsters : they are indebted, marginalized, or socially excluded people.

The anxiety running through the series is collective. It does not stem from a personal problem but from an economic system that pushes individuals to confront each other and abandon their moral ideals to survive at all costs. Each ordeal recalls a well-known logic: winning at the expense of others, accepting unjust rules, and considering the human being as a replaceable resource. The final scene of Season 1 reinforces this idea. It shows that all this suffering was only intended to entertain a privileged minority, and that, according to the game’s creator, this suffering is merely a metaphor, a staging of what humankind is today. This revelation echoes a feeling widely shared today : that of being caught in a system that benefits a few at the expense of the many, and that the participants in this system accept it.

Conversely, The Bear does not rely on a spectacular concept. Everything takes place in a restaurant kitchen. Yet, the tension is constant. The noise, the speed, the arguments, and the stress create an almost oppressive atmosphere.

The anxiety here is intimate. It is linked to grief, the relationship with work, the quest for perfection, and the inability to let go. Carmy carries a deep malaise within him, fueled by his past and constant pressure to succeed. The series shows how work can become a place of suffering, even when it is a passion. Each character impacts their job based on the psychological state they inhabit, imposing a chaotic process that only resolves when each of them manages to coexist in the best way, and after significant personal work on both sides.

Different Scales, One Human Anguish

What particularly distinguishes Squid Game and The Bear is the scale at which anxiety is represented. Squid Game chooses exaggeration, shock, and violence to highlight very real mechanisms. The game functions as a metaphor for a brutal economic system where competition crushes all forms of solidarity. The rules are clear but deeply unfair, and the characters have virtually no room to maneuver. The anxiety is visible, spectacular, and collective.

Conversely, The Bear shows a much quieter anxiety. Nothing extraordinary happens on screen, but everything seems constantly on the verge of collapse. The series reveals what it means to live under pressure daily, in a demanding professional setting, without recognition and without real space to express emotions. Here, suffering is not externally imposed; it is integrated into the rhythm of the characters’ lives.

Despite these differences, the two series converge on an essential point : they show individuals trapped in structures that overwhelm them. In Squid Game, the system is violent and explicit. In The Bear, it is more diffused, embedded in the norms of work, success, and performance. In both cases, these series question the place of the human in models that prioritize results, efficiency, or profit over well-being. Whether visible or silent, these anxieties concern us all. They reflect experiences that many people live, at different levels, in current society.

An Anxiety-Provoking Context

If these fictions resonate so much, it is also because they are part of a particular context. Economic crises, professional uncertainties, pressure to succeed, mental fatigue: the feeling of insecurity is widely shared.

In this context, series become spaces where these tensions can be expressed. They give form, a story, and faces to anxieties that are often diffuse. Through their characters and narratives, they highlight the fragility of a balance that has become difficult to maintain. They show individuals confronted with high expectations, the fear of failure, or the loss of meaning, in a world where stability seems increasingly fragile. In this sense, series act as indicators of the collective psychological state of our time.

Fiction That Creates Connection

Faced with this type of fiction, the viewer is not indifferent. They are no longer simply in front of a story that they passively consume. Series like Squid Game and The Bear emotionally and morally involve the person watching them. They provoke a feeling of discomfort, sometimes guilt, but also identification.

In Squid Game, the viewer is confronted with a disturbing question : how far would they be willing to go to survive or succeed in an unfair system ? In The Bear, the question is more intimate: how much work pressure are we supposed to accept as normal ? This shift from fiction to personal experience reinforces the power of the narrative.

By staging these anxieties, series also offer a form of recognition. They tell the viewer : what you feel is not isolated. This identification creates a strong bond between the work and its audience. Series then become spaces for shared reflection, where everyone can project their own doubts and tensions. As with any cultural object or art form, we see a reassuring or heavy projection of who we are in them.

Today, TV series play a much more important role than it seems. They no longer merely entertain : they observe, criticize, and question the world in which we live.

Squid Game and The Bear show two different faces of contemporary anxiety but ultimately tell the same story : that of human beings confronted with systems, expectations, and pressures that overwhelm them. By bringing these realities to the screen, fiction invites us to step back and reflect on our own place in society. These series do not give us ready-made answers, but they ask essential questions. Ultimately, it is perhaps this involvement of the viewer that explains why series occupy such an important place in contemporary culture today. They do not just represent the world; they confront us with it. And that is perhaps their most valuable role.

Author: Paul SAOUD

Blood antiquities: The complicity of western museums in the Syrian conflict

Architecture, Arts visuels, Réflexions07 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

When we think of war, we think about destruction. However, there is often a silent war against memory. The conflict that ravages Syria since 2011 has not only tragically displaced and killed millions, but has also erased a good part of Syrian’s historical heritage, that is to say the cradle of civilization. This allowed the existence of a network of looting and trafficking, transforming millennials of history into cash for terrorist organizations. What is worse, this trade requires a market. While the stealing takes place in the war zones of the Middle East, the destination for these blood antiquities is the very nice and polished galleries of Europe, the United States, and the Gulf. There is consequently a disturbing connection between armed conflict and the art market, allowing groups like Daesh to industrialize the pillage of numerous sites. Prestigious European institutions, through real negligence or voluntary blindness, became the financiers of terror.

The industrialization of pillage: an empire built on ruins

Between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State (Daesh) consolidated control over parts of Syria and Iraq, a territory presenting at least 4500 archaeological sites. Among these were nine UNESCO World Heritage sites, where first ever signs of urbanization and writing were discovered. For the terrorist organization, looting those places represented a dual opportunity: destruction of polytheist symbols, and clandestine pillage for financial gain. Since the beginning of hostilities in 2011, over 320 archaeological sites have been irreparably wounded, looted, or obliterated. For instance, the ancient cities of Mari, 3rd millennium BC, and Ebla, renowned for their royal archives, have been bombed and destroyed. Other sites, Dura-Europos, often named the « Pompeii of the Desert » and the legendary greco-roman city of Palmyra have suffered complete erasure of the map. To categorize those action, Waleed Khaled al-A’sad, former director of Syrian antiquities uses the words « cultural genocide« . This shows that the very identity of a people is getting voluntarily and systematically deleted. Satellite images from late 2014 revealed the extent of the issue: the site of Mari was scarred by over 1300 excavation craters, by bulldozers and heavy machinery, destroying a lot of precious paintings that were almost 6000 years old…

Investment of Zimri-Lîm, 1766 B.C., mural of Mari – now destroyed

The scariest part is how Daesh’s operations are highly hierarchized, in Diwans (departments). The terrorist organization established a « Diwan al-Rikaz », a department for natural resources, which controls the exploitation of oil, gas, and antiquities. On May 15th of 2015, a raid by the U.S. Special Forces on the site controlled by Abu Sayyaf, the financing chief of Daesh, showed intelligence that exposed how sophisticated the group’s administration is. Seized documents included receipts indicating that in just one province (Deir ez-Zor), the group had collected 265 000 $ in a tax called khums, perceived on local diggers. Following estimations, the total of trade in that province exceeded 1,3 million $.

The economics of terror: financing terrorism with artifacts

However, estimating the precise revenue generated by this illicit trade is very difficult due to the blurred nature of the black market: estimates vary significantly between intelligence agencies and international organizations. The high estimations made by the Russians asserted that Daesh generated up to 200 million $ annually from the antiquities trade. Then, in October 2015, Iraq and Interpol estimated around 100 million $ per year. However, French and American intelligence agencies offered more modest figures. The French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism estimated the 2015 revenue at approximately 30 million $, while the U.S. government estimated between 30 and 50 million $. Nevertheless, it does not matter the exact amount of money : what counts is the importance of this revenue in Daesh’s propaganda. Indeed, after being successfully raided by the UN, Daesh faced a big drop in oil revenue. In this context, antiquities became merely a vital « substitution resource » : history was sold to keep the machine running. For another example, artifacts stolen from Dura-Europos alone could be worth nearly 18 million $ on the art market. And if you think of the thousands of archeological sites still available, the financial potential is crazy.

The supply chain: laundering history

The journey of a stolen artifact before it arrives at a gallery or a museum in Paris involves a complex process of laundering, in order to blur the illicit origin of the artefact and integrate it into the legal economy. The primary passage for these artifacts are the porous borders of Turkey and Lebanon. Once across the border, the objects enter the informal grey market. Since many of these items come from illegal excavations, they have never been photographed or documented by official archaeologists. This is the most important moment, because they get invisible to databases like Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art register. But the journey is not finished : to sell antiquity at a good price in Europe, it needs good provenance, which means a documented history of ownership. Traffickers and dealers easily forge these documents. Commonly, they claim that a Syrian artifact belongs to an old family collection dating back to the 1970s (before the 1970 UNESCO Convention which prohibits the import of unprovenanced cultural property). And on top of that, the market is flooded with faux: up to 80% of Syrian antiquities seized in Lebanon are actually forgeries or have forged documentation. All of this is because of the important demand of European galleries and collectors, which complicates the work of law.

Institutional complicity: The Louvre scandal

For years, museums maintained little to no concern, acting very detached from the question. However, recent scandals revealed that even the most prestigious institutions are not that clean. The most known scandal hit in May 2022 around Jean-Luc Martinez, the former president-director of the Louvre Museum (2013–2021). He was a famous expert appointed as France’s ambassador for international cooperation on heritage, and was suddenly charged with « complicity in organized fraud » and « money laundering » for the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Investigators suspect Martinez voluntarily closing his eyes on the strange provenance of several Egyptian artifacts acquired for millions of euros. The centerpiece of this scandal is a pink granite stele bearing the name of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The investigation revealed an international network of scammers. The stele was sold to the Louvre by a Parisian expert, Christophe Kunicki. Kunicki was already suspected in a similar trial in the USA, for a golden sarcophagus of the priest Nedjemankh purchased by the MET for 3,5 million euros. However, another investigation proved that the sarcophagus had been looted from Egypt in 2011 during the Arab Spring and smuggled out with forged papers. The Met was forced to give it back to Egypt in 2019. The implication of such famous experts proves that the precautions taken by major museums are not sufficient. This is a disturbing question: was this only negligence, or was it a deliberate maneuver to secure prestigious acquisitions? Despite multiple efforts to cancel the trial, the Paris Cour d’appel confirmed the guilt of Martinez in February 2023.

The response: law enforcement and state hypocrisy

Different institutions try to face this crisis. France has mobilized its specialized unit, the OCBC (Central Office for the Fight against Traffic in Cultural Goods). Established in 1975, it has police officers with expertise in art history and criminal investigation. The OCBC has been crucial in those cases, for example with the arrest of five prominent Parisian antiquity dealers in June 2020. They are the ones currently investigating the theft from the Louvre in October 2025. What’s more, the French customs also do a big job, intercepting a lot of shipments. To raise public awareness, the Louvre held an exhibition in 2021 displaying statues from Libya and Syria, destined for the black market but intercepted at the border. However, the political response often balances between tactless statements and uncomfortable realities. In 2014, Philippe Lalliot, the French ambassador to UNESCO, stated, « Even when the dead are counted in the tens of thousands, we must be concerned with cultural cleansing« . The majority of museums today do not really take précautions regarding this scandal, because let’s face it : in Europe, we’d rather finance terrorism and death of thousands than missing on the opportunity to appropriate a beautiful sarcophagus.

The shadow of colonialism

The real problem underlying here is the habit some museums took of stealing and taking ownership of their colonies’ patrimony. The Louvre’s department of oriental antiquities has over 150 000 objects, many of which were acquired during the colonial era. Under the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon (1923–1946), archaeological excavations were governed by the principle of « partage« : finds were divided between the country of origin and the excavating nation. This legal framework allowed thousands of objects from sites like Mari and Ras Shamra to enter French collections. It established a big European ownership over Middle Eastern heritage. Nowadays, the debate has finally shifted towards restitution. For instance, the return of the Mari tablets to Syria between 1996 and 2004 demonstrated that repatriation is possible, yet it remains an exception rather than a rule…

Towards a change ?

Terrifyingly, the connection between the “refined” world of European art galleries and the brutal war of Syria is real. The blood antiquities trade is not only a crime against property, but a mechanism that transforms human heritage into funding for terrorism. The scandals involving the Louvre and the Met demonstrate that the art market’s opacity is a systemic feature. It allows a form of laundering where the illegal origins of an object are erased by the reputation of a prestigious museum. As long as institutions prioritize possession over provenance, and as long as collectors view ancient artifacts as mere commodities, the pillaging of history will continue. Europe often positions itself as the guardian of universal culture. However, the evidence suggests that in its hunger for accumulation, it forgot that this heritage is no one’s property.

Author: Kenya Meziere

The Louvre heist: how 7 minutes shook the world of cultural heritage

Architecture, Arts visuels, Réflexions04 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com#art, #louvremuseum, #news

Breaking news: the crash between the boldest thieves and one of the most famous museums

*French police officers standing next to a furniture elevator used by robbers to enter the Louvre Museum* *on Quai Francois Mitterrand* *in Paris on October 19, 2025* © Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP

A shocking news story happened on Sunday morning, on the 19th of October. According to initial reports, two burglars wearing yellow reflective vests escaped with historic jewelries from the Louvre, one of the most frequently visited museums in the world and the most precious museum in France. They left using a common Parisian monte-meubles, a furniture lift on the outside of buildings, and two accomplices were waiting for them on scooters. The whole process took about seven minutes, which is even faster than a short coffee time. The stolen value are absolutely national and world treasures: eight pieces of priceless historic jewelry, including a necklace once belonged to Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III. The museum opened only 30 minutes and then closed in order to protect the crime scene,. Beside the big losses, people have to admit that the operation was audacious and even brazen, and the well-organized preparation by the thieves is undoubtable. According to news report, the burglars entered through a window, destroyed two display cases in the gilded Galerie d’Apollon, and stole crown jewels. Seven minutes was the time needed for guards to arrive, but everything ended so quickly so they cannot stop this tragedy. The only good news is that no one got hurt. Clearly, this is big international news. French officials suspect that this was an organized event, possibly with help from collectors who know the true value and meaning of these objects.

Are the jewelries still the same when they are back?

*The crown of Empress Eugénie*, by Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier ©
Stéphane Maréchalle / Louvre Museum / Grand Palais-Rmn

The jewelries in the museum are not just common goods that can be sold and bought again. They represent history, memory, and cultural rights as part of human life. The Louvre has more visitors than any other museum in France, and one of the biggest numbers in the world. The biggest reason is that the collections in this museum are unique and cannot be replicated or simply estimated with money. All the historical circumstances around these pieces form their multidimensional value. As Malcolm Forbes once said, “Jewelry is the epitome of the emotions it represents – not just beauty, but memories.” Those necklaces, crowns, and other jewelries are containers for emotional memory for the French people, and their loss can lead to a breakage in the national memory. Some people may think that jewels are only materials; but value isn’t just in the materials themselves, it is also in the moments, the people, and the places where they were worn by historical figures.

Because these jewels are famous, they cannot be sold directly on the free market. It is highly likely that they would be disassembled and transferred, then sold out eventually in smaller segments. This is one of the most painful facts: after segmentation and alteration, even if some parts are recovered, the original authenticity and wholeness of the work cannot be fully restored. Jewelries also serve as part of cultural heritage. Such a theft brings humiliation not in a sensational way, but in the sense that it challenges the state’s duty to protect shared memory. Trying to steal national treasures is already a bold move, not to mention performing it in broad daylight. As the protector and steward of national treasures, the Louvre should have several guarding guidelines and more guardians in place that match the value of the collections. But there were blind spots for protection, and there were not enough personnel to respond in time. In January, there was reportedly a plan to improve security in the Louvre, but it did not get the chance to be carried out quickly enough. So a question appears: why did the French government and the Louvre know the problem but not respond to it immediately? Especially when the government provides strong public funding for this institution, the failure is a surprise for the public in France and abroad.

Walter Benjamin once wrote about the “aura” of an artwork – the unique existence of a work in time and space that we feel when we meet it in person. That “aura” was violently damaged when tools shattered the display cases and the jewels were removed. Even if the pieces are recovered, the jewelries can be segmented and altered in a very short time. After that process, even though we restore the objects materially, the authenticity built through centuries of protection and witness cannot be restored in the same way. We can remember another history: dated back to Chinese Qing Dynasty, there were invasions to China from other countries. Many jewelries and ancient treasures are also stolen and got robbed. Some still sit in museums abroad, sometimes with scars and cut traces on them. Some were returned, but many remain elsewhere. These losses showed a period of weakness and inaction in the old regime. This case in France brings a similar symbolic wound. The damage is not only to objects, but to public trust, to the confidence of citizens, and to the aura that connects people to their past.

The brightness of the jewelries and the darkness of the power

Large corsage bow of Empress Eugénie (brooch) ©
Stéphane Maréchalle / Louvre Museum / Grand-Palais-Rmn

As John Ruskin argued, nations write their autobiographies through deeds, words, and art. When a necklace or a crown is stolen, a page is torn out of the material memory of the nation. Each stolen piece was a link to the era of Napoleon and the political theater and artistic patronage of that time. The Louvre and the wider society recognize these objects as cultural heritage and as pedagogical tools for civic identity. But the thieves and any potential buyer see them as signs of status and power. As Jean Baudrillard noted, when objects are cut from their historical context, they become hyperreal symbols – empty signs of prestige detached from their true stories. On August 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen by the staff from the Louvre. That event changed how the public saw the painting and represented how art and power can mix outside the museum arena. This new incident again shows the tension between cultural meaning and the temptation of possession.

To understand why this theft resonates so widely, we should return to the gallery’s own history. The Galerie d’Apollon is not merely a room but a ritual space where France stages its political and artistic lineage. Built under Louis XIV and restored in the nineteenth century after a fire, it frames jewels as part of a story that moves from monarchy to empire to republic. In such a stage, jewels function like living documents: gold and gemstones that record the tastes of rulers, the skills of artisans, and the ambitions of a nation. Removing them erases not only a display but a thread of narrative: a way for citizens and visitors to approach and debate history inside public walls.

These operational patterns are tied to market realities. High-profile crown jewels and unique artifacts cannot circulate openly; images are widely available, catalogues exist, and provenance is checked. As a result, criminals often disassemble pieces – removing stones, melting settings, and selling parts one by one. That practice destroys the provenance and breaks the link between materials and their stories. Auction houses and dealers now often do due diligence and consult such records. But private sales and informal networks are hard to monitor. There is still a gap between our moral agreement that heritage should be public, and the anonymity of certain markets where fragments can disappear.

What can we do to recover?

After a loss, communication matters: open briefings, community dialogues, and education about provenance and restitution can turn shock into civic engagement. For museum staff – conservators, curators, guards – the loss is personal. For citizens, an empty case symbolizes a broken connection. A thoughtful response must honor both the emotion and the responsibility that come with stewardship.

From a legal and diplomatic point of view, the aftermath of such a theft activates networks of cooperation. INTERPOL’s Stolen Works of Art database, alerts from customs, and cultural property units in police forces are designed to stop illicit flows. Legal tools for information sharing, and coordination between cultural ministries and museums, help provide documentation and images to identify parts if they appear.

Technology can help, but it must be used wisely. Microdot tagging can survive disassembly and help with attribution if parts are found. High-resolution 3D scanning and scientific analysis can create a digital fingerprint that identifies an original even after alteration. Public memory also needs care. The sudden absence of artifacts changes how communities see their past. School groups who might have stood in front of a Napoleonic necklace now see an empty vitrine.

Accountability should be specific, not vague. Reviews after the incident should include clear timelines, responsible parties, and measurable outcomes: which upgrades, by when, with what training. Budget transparency – how funds for security were used and why delays happened – can restore trust. Boards and trustees should recognize security as part of their duty, not a side issue. Insurance can encourage better practices by rewarding drills, audits, and integration of technology. Governance is the architecture that turns today’s lessons into tomorrow’s routines.

Returning to theory helps us see the path ahead. Benjamin’s aura is not a mystical word; it is the felt presence of time, the sense that an object has traveled through lives and events to meet us now. To protect aura, we must protect the conditions of truthful, public encounter.

Heritage survives not by being hidden away, but by being responsibly shared. That is the promise and the paradox of a great museum. It must expose treasures to the public gaze while shielding them from harm. If there is a lesson in this theft, it is that protection and participation must grow together.

In the end, what disappeared were not only jewels, but points of connection: between past and present, between craft and ceremony, between private emotion and public meaning. The value is not measured in carats, but in memory – how objects anchor stories, how stories anchor identities, and how identities hold a shared future. Rebuilding will need resilient systems and resilient relationships: between institutions and citizens, between art and law, between beauty and responsibility. If that rebuilding succeeds, the empty space in the case will not be only a scar. It will be a reminder that vigilance is a form of care, that care is a form of justice, and that justice – like art – belongs to everyone.

Written by Yajchuan Liu

Le Voyage en Hiver, much more than just a Christmas market!

Architecture, Arts visuels, Nantes Culture03 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

Since last Saturday, the buildings of Nantes are shining, new sculptures have appeared in the streets and people are wandering from cottage to cottage with cups filled with mulled wineat Place Royale. It’s the beginning of the winter, and most importantly, the beginning of Le Voyage en Hiver (Winter’s journey)! In fact, this colourful and shiny event has come back for its fourth edition, and it will take place until the 4th of January.

But what is it? And what distinguishes it from a regular Christmas market and other Christmas decorations that you could find in any other city? To understand it, we have to take some steps back. Le Voyage en Hiver, in fact, is the winter version of the iconic Le Voyage à Nantes (A journey to Nantes). Le Voyage à Nantes is a huge itinerary made by the tourism office, that explores all the main touristic sites of Nantes and a lot of cultural and artistic places. The tourist can go through this journey by following a shining green line painted in the streets of the city. It is an unusual, funny and efficient way that the city of Nantes has found to indicate all the touristic, artistic and cultural places of Nantes. It is also a great way to promote some places and activities that are less known than the popular ones.

Therefore, Le Voyage en Hiver is the continuity of this exciting trip in Nantes, but it takes place during winter. Created in 2022 by the artistic director Jean Blaise, this is an itinerary through winter-related decorations, events, artworks, and more generally, Nantes heritage. It unites in a unique itinerary history music event, Nantes gastronomy, exhibitions, decorations, Christmas markets, retailers’ animation, children activities, animations at main touristic places like the Château des ducs de Bretagne, and a lot more.

The light decorations from “La nuit je vois” (At night I see) exhibition– Le Voyage en Hiver 2023 © Martin Argyroglo

As the director of Le Voyage à Nantes Sophie Lévy said, the purpose is to create a dialogue between Nantes heritage, history, and contemporary art. This journey is not just about Christmas; it is about exploring how Nantes lives in winter and celebrates it. People can explore that with big things like buildings or sculptures, but also with the smallest and unexpected ones, like gates, or yards. But besides celebrating the past and the traditions, the purpose of Le Voyage en Hiver is also to create new ways to celebrate and live winter, through the variety of its innovative, artistic, and sustainable animations.

Let’s take a deeper look on this magical journey.

The first main animation of Le Voyage en Hiver is the “La nuit je vois” (At night I see) exhibition. Created in 2022 by the artist Vincent Olinet and renewed every year; “La nuit je vois” is a light decorations itinerary running through the streets of the city. This exhibition is made of hundreds of lanterns and luminous statues, creating a magic, shining and colourful panorama of Nantes. You can see a harmony of cyan, yellow, and magenta colours during this period of the year. For the artist, “La nuit je vois” is a luminous portrait of Nantes. In fact, to create these lanterns and these sculptures, Vincent Olinet took inspiration from architectural and design elements of the city, like mouldings, brackets, or mascarons. This itinerary grows year by year and this winter, Vincent Olinet enlightened 66 streets with his decorations. Hence, this year, the artist added 185 “gates” that are currently decorating a lot of buildings fronts. For the aesthetic of these gates, he took inspiration from classical brackets, which are the pillars that sustain old balconies. The idea is to make the buildings look as if they wanted to hold each other’s, by creating them some sorts of arms. Some of the “La nuit je vois” sculptures have become iconic through these four years and keep being installed for every edition of Le Voyage en Hiver. In fact, the most known sculpture of this exhibition is the big deer lantern, which also became the symbol of Le Voyage en Hiver. This is why Vincent Olinet hopes that this exhibition could become a new tradition. He said in an interview that maybe for some children, this exhibition will be impactful and that maybe someday, when they will be older, Christmas will remind them of “La nuit je vois”.

The iconic deer from the “La nuit je vois” itinerary © Martin Argyroglo

The consoles from “La nuit je vois” – Le Voyage en Hiver 2025

Another animation that cannot be missed in Le Voyage en Hiver is the very popular Christmas market. Actually, this market is divided in two sites. The first is at Place du Commerce and the second one is at Place Royale. The market will take place until the 28th of December, and it is open every day from 11 AM to 9 PM. Nantes Christmas market is very popular even outside the city, as it is the biggest Christmas market of the West of France. It hosts more than 140 exhibitors, presenting handcrafts, Nantes gastronomy, local creations and Christmas gifts for everyone. This market promotes the tradition of celebrating Christmas with family and friends, in a convivial and joyful atmosphere, surrounded by red, golden and white decorations. For Carine Martin, president of the retailer’s association “Plein-Centre” (Inner-city), the market of Le Voyage en Hiver permits to reinforce the cultural and retailing identity of Nantes in a joyful and familiar way. For students, it is the perfect occasion to have a good time with friends, while discovering new handcrafts and enjoying foods, and to celebrate Christmas.

Near to the Christmas market, there is L’autre Marché (The Other Market). It will stay on the Esplanade Feydeau until the 23d of December. L’autre Marché is an ethical, sustainable and solidary market. It has been created by Les Ecossolies in 2009 and promote social and solidary local actors. Les Ecossolies is a Nantes association that sustains social and solidary businesses, and more specifically the local ones. The exhibitors of L’autre Marché work with sustainable behaviours, such as zero-waste, local agriculture, international solidarity, social innovation, and so on. This market also gives the opportunity to local entrepreneurs to promote their business and to finance their activities. Therefore, going to L’autre Marché means defending ethical, local and sustainable businesses. If you are looking for gifts that would have a positive impact on our society, then L’autre Marché is definitely the place for you. Furthermore, L’autre Marché gives an opportunity to discover new ways to celebrate Christmas, and especially more sustainable ones.

The Christmas animations – Place Graslin © Philippe Piron

But let’s get back to the streets and the structures of Nantes; and take a look at the work of Dominique Blais, called “À flot d’Airain” (In a Flow of Bronze). This work is a reflection about sounds and rivers, and it can be experienced in various places of the city. More specifically it is a work about the sound of the bells on the churches of Nantes. In fact, with “À flot d’Airain”, Dominique Blais adds movement to the sound of the churches bells and then transforms this sound in a breath that would cross all the city through the rivers. To achieve this complex mechanism, Dominique Blais has installed speakers on the bridges and the cranes that are near the churches. The speakers, in this way, amplificate the bells sounds, and the river, like a mirror, amplifies the sounds and propagate them. The purpose for the artist is to invite people to take a pause in their daily life, gather near the rivers or the churches and listen to the sounds of the city. Like Vincent Olinet, Dominique Blais wishes that this can become a ritual for Nantes families too. If you want to enjoy these aquatic concerts, go to the following places: Place du Change, Douves du Château, Bras de la Madeleine, or the Quai Ceineray. The concerts are scheduled at 1:13 PM, 5:17 PM, or 6:18 PM. There, you will listen to the music of the Saint-Nicolas Basilica and the Sainte-Croix Church bells. You can also discover other Dominique Blais’ works at Place du Change, the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, the Bras de la Madeleine, the Quai Ceineray or the Lieu Unique.

Except these animations, the itinerary still has many sites to explore. For example, there is the Christmas decorations at the very well-known Passage Pommeraye. Other animations include the children fairgrounds at Place Graslin and Carré Feydeau, the “Petite Maman Noël” (Little Mother Christmas) statue at the Esplanade Feydeau, and Christmas exhibitions at the History Museum.

Various events are also going to take place until the end of Le Voyage en hiver. The most important ones are the Christmas and New year ‘s eve celebrations at Les Machines de l’Ile. You can also attend in the city the following Christmas concerts, every Saturday – except the 27th. The place of the concert changes every week, following this order: Place Félix-Fournier, Château des Ducs de Bretagne, Les Machines de l’Ile, Musée des Beaux-Arts.

To conclude, for me Le Voyage en Hiver is a way to include the magic of the Christmas and winter period in every aspect of our lives. For example, while people wander in the public space doing daily things, they are surrounded by the decorations and artworks of amazing exhibitions. There is also a community and convivial dimension in Le Voyage en Hiver. In fact, I feel like we are experiencing this journey altogether through the city. This makes me think that the people in Nantes and more specifically in the public space are probably part of the exhibition too, making it more dynamic and bringing more life to it.

Le Voyage en Hiver is another example of how Nantes keeps traditions and heritage alive while always encouraging innovation and creativity. Here, Le voyage en Hiver perfectly balances between the Christmas traditions of the Market, and innovations such as the sustainable activities of L’autre Marché, the inclusive “Petite Maman Noël” artwork and the renewal of traditional architecture with “La nuit je vois”. Finally, the city of Nantes is great at creating and renewing constantly these itineraries. These guide every kind of people through the discovery of cultural and artistic organizations. I feel like Nantes is a continuous journey that makes us discover new things.

Author and photographer: Lucia Pelos

Sources:

https://metropole.nantes.fr/tout-savoir-sur-le-voyage-en-hiver-2025-et-les-fetes-de-fin-d-annee

https://metropole.nantes.fr/les-sculptures-lumineuses-nantaises-vues-par-leur-createur

https://marche-de-noel-nantes.com

L’Autre Marché

https://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr

Death of albums or death of our attention span?

Musique, Réflexions01 décembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

25, Super Trouper, Hit Me Hard and Soft, Igor or American Idiot, I could go on and on about my personal iconic albums. What about you? When was the last time you found yourself listening to a full-length album of an artist, with no break or song skipped? This may sound like an odd question to ask, perhaps a futility for the ones who enjoy music as it goes, or an abomination to consider for those who cherish each second of an album. Well, let me tell you that an album can represent much more than 10 songs compiled together in a collection. In this digital era, our lives have changed on many different levels, including our way of consuming music, maybe without us even realising it. From the 50s’ vinyls to Spotify, by way of the 90s’ cassette tapes and the 2000s’ CDs and MP3 players, in about a century people got introduced to various ways and media to listen to music, causing the perpetual evolution of a whole industry.

This article aims at showcasing how technological change has revolutionised not only the economy but also the philosophy behind the production and consumption of albums. Commercial tool or token of an artist’s sincerity, the album has shown through history its versatility as an art form. It has been remaining for about a decade, I believe, at a turning point in its existence, having its fate left in the hands of artists, publishers and audiences.

Technology at the service of the art

If we dive a bit deeper into the history of music albums, we realise that it is intertwined with the history of recording technology.

Vinyls in the 50s, cassettes in the 70s, CDs in the 80s and MP3 in the late 90s, all these evolutions were answers to specific needs and issues identified in the phonographic industry. LPs (long-playing vinyl records) were a format that could hold recordings as long as 52 minutes, or 26 minutes per side, at a speed of 33 1/3 rpm, perfect for music at home. This format introduced at the same time the design of illustrated album jackets, creating a whole identity and concept revolving around the album. Cassette tapes became a more practical option for listening to music on the go out of home, allowing people to control what they listened to and also to make their own mixtapes. CDs worked almost on the same basis as of the cassettes except that they were lighter, more compact (CD meaning Compact Disk), and they delivered a better sound for music, and permitted to have even more control on what you could listen to by skipping songs (tracks being separated one by one while before music was recorded on the same tapes). Each of these technology advances contributed to adding another missing piece to the puzzle it is to make the music listening experience always more qualitative. The impact of technological change in our ways of living, even in the most mundane aspect such as music consumption is no big news for us here.

But among all these ones, the real troublemakers were the streaming platforms. With first the arrival of Napster in 1999, allowing listeners to access and to share music through MP3 files as they wish, then followed by other, more conventionalised, platforms like iTunes, Soundcloud or Spotify in the 2000s, the music consumption model entered a turning point where the consumer was the one deciding what to listen to, when, and how.

Goodbye Yellow Brick, Elton John (1973)

A commercialised form of art

The music album in its “artistic” consideration as we may have right now originates in the 60s with the concept album. Artists like the Beach Boys, the Beatles or the Who popularised this format in the rock genre and its consideration of creating a whole narrative around the music, giving an opportunity to artists to showcase their personal identity in their art.

This model has thus been the norm for artists in many genres and several periods of time. Releasing albums throughout a career is also demonstrating their evolution and their journey as a person, where the album becomes the mirror echoing the artists’ lives. Albums become the symbols of an artist’s sincerity, the holders of a message.

Evolution of Billie Eilish’s albums, from left to right: ‘don’t smile at me’ (2017), ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP WHERE DO WE GO’ (2019), ‘Happier Than Ever’ (2021), ‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ (2024)

And the art doesn’t stop at the music, but continues in all the forms of art surrounding it: music videos, visual concepts, album jackets…

We can for example take a quick look at the K-pop industry and how they pushed the idea further: groups release twice to three times a year EPs (Extended Plays) or albums that revolve around a specific concept, a visual identity or a specific theme that they will have to promote for a month on TV shows and on social media. And this is where the art meets business: while the original aim of concept albums was to emulate originality and creativity, here companies will search to study which concepts work, what subject is interesting to address or which kind of performance is appealing to the audiences.

Evolution of the albums of the K-Pop group TWICE from 2017 to 2020

The line between aesthetics and marketing may be thin, but the goal stays the same for one releasing music: “how to convince audiences to stay focused on my music?”.

The constant content

At whatever time of the day, in the shower, when we’re cooking or on the way to work, our lives are now rhythmed by the sound of music surrounding us.

The dawn of the digital era, with Napster and the MP3 players for instance, opened the door to customised listening and fragmented consumption. Listeners are not passive consumers of the music released by artists that reaches them, rather they decide on what to listen to depending on their mood or their disposition to focus, or not, on the music they put on. Because, in fact, can we still talk about listening to music if we’re not actually listening, if all we need now is an underlying background sound? In early 2020, Deezer conducted a survey on 8,000 users, and 54% of respondents revealed listening to fewer albums than 5-10 years ago. This can be explained in many different ways.

One reason that I somehow find ironic is how the access to an infinity of choices of music to listen to leaves us with an incapacity to actually make a choice. Being overwhelmed by the amount of information we consume every day doesn’t allow us to be in a favourable mindset to digest a full-length album of 40 to 50 minutes.

Living in a higher-paced society as well has conditioned us to expect everything to come faster and faster towards us. We clearly see it with the example of social media and how our attention span has drastically decreased over time. Song skipping on Spotify signals almost the same as doom scrolling on Instagram: we are constantly unsatisfied by the content that is put right under our nose, so we keep scrolling until perhaps our reward system is fulfilled.

The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd (1973)

Discovery, Daft Punk (2001)

Nowadays, one of the greatest forces shaping the modern listener’s experience is the algorithm. A system designed to maximise users’ engagement, both punctually and on the long run, the listener becomes again the victim of the music providers and are not complete master of their music experience anymore. As a consequence for the albums, their long format doesn’t fit the model of virality and the performance based on short music extracts. The algorithm will prioritise the track that goes viral rather than the album that sells a narrative. Thus, the traditional role of the album as a complete journey is inefficient in the attention economy.

The clash: singles v. albums

Talking that much about the audience shall not make us forget the pillar without whom this discussion wouldn’t exist in the first place: the artists. It is indeed nowadays a dilemma for an artist to choose between releasing a single or an album. Commercial performance or artistic intention? Rather than having to choose between both options, why not take a look at why they are actually both interesting in their own ways?

For emerging artists, betting on a viral single to attract as much people as possible can be the classic route nowadays. Releasing multiple singles, a bit like conceptual albums in their first intent, is a good opening to discover an artist’s talent and the tip of their universe. Albums can be the first stones to build a promising career if commitment follows (from both artist and audience). The albums will then be the token of a shift from viral buzz to steadiness and unveiling a more personal identity. On the other hand, for established artists, the albums will be a demonstration of their growing career and their on-going commitment to their art. With steadier and more loyal communities, they can allow themselves to take the time to release the right album at the right time, this being even more appreciated by dedicated fans.

Far from the end

Even though this article didn’t start off in a very positive light, the goal was mainly to discuss an issue that may seem almost insignificant because we don’t always realise what we listen to exactly, and it is precisely because we don’t notice it that the discussion shall be open. Albums still have years of success to come, I believe, and many professionals, although they set warning, remain optimistic, if not too pessimistic on the matter.

The issue relies on the Audience – Artists – Distributors tryptic, and the correct equilibrium between the three is yet to be found. If a century ago the Artist – Distributor segment was at its peak with the physical sales as well as the radio format not much mentioned here, and now that the Distributor – Audience one is strengthening, then perhaps the Artist – Audience segment has yet to be solidified in order to achieve production and consumption models sustainable for each side.

Finding the balance between economic performance and artistic commitment still remains the life-long challenge of the artist.

Author: Amarine RANARISOA

From La Dolce Vita to La Grande Bellezza: Fifty Years of Italian Splendor and Melancholy

Cinéma / TV, Réflexions29 novembreaudenciaculture@gmail.comArt, cinema, Culture

Italian cinema has always possessed a rare gift: the ability to turn life itself into a spectacle, and the spectacle into a meditation on life. From Il Sorpasso to 8½, from La Dolce Vita to Cinema Paradiso, Malèna, and La Grande Bellezza, we travel through more than half a century of Italian history and yet, beyond time and style, we follow a single vanishing line: that of desire, beauty, and the emptiness that hides within them. Each film becomes a mirror held up to a nation constantly oscillating between grace and disillusionment, between sensual excess and existential void. In these works, beauty often serves as a bandage, a luminous facade concealing the wound of a lost innocence, a nostalgia for something that perhaps never truly existed.

Il sorpasso (1962) — © Fair Film / Incei Film

8 ½ (Otto e mezzo) (1963) — © (« respective rights holders ») Federico Fellini / original production/distribution companies

The 1960s: Speed, Life, and Vertigo

 In Il Sorpasso by Dino Risi (1962), Italy races down the open road of its economic miracle. Shot with a restless handheld camera and drenched in the harsh Mediterranean light, the film captures a country in motion: impatient, euphoric, and reckless. Vittorio Gassman’s charisma becomes a metaphor for the speed of the times: his laughter roars like an engine, his freedom feels intoxicating, and yet every acceleration hides a growing void. The editing mirrors that frenzy : sharp cuts, sudden shifts, a rhythm that refuses to settle, echoing a generation discovering both mobility and moral disorientation. Italy is learning how to live again, seduced by the car, the coastline, and consumerism. But in the rearview mirror, innocence is already fading.

A year later, Fellini explores a different kind of vertigo the dizziness of creation itself. In 8½ (1963), the camera no longer runs forward but circles inward, orbiting the mind of Guido, the director trapped in his own imagination. Fellini’s mastery of mise-en-scène turns confusion into art: the floating camera movements, the dissolving boundaries between dream and reality, the dazzling use of high-contrast black and white: all conjure a world both intimate and surreal. The technical brilliance mirrors the film’s theme: cinema as both liberation and imprisonment. The optimism of postwar Italy, the so-called economic miracle, gives way to a crisis of meaning. The music swells, the spectacle continues, but the dance becomes circular. An eternal carnival masking an existential void.

With La Dolce Vita (1960), Fellini had already captured the perfect image of this drift. Rome transformed into a dazzling stage where souls burn out beneath the glare of flashbulbs and the fever of endless nights. Marcello Mastroianni wanders through it all, immaculate and lost, suspended between faith, desire, and a profound boredom that no pleasure can erase.

Technically, Fellini invents a new cinematic language to express moral vertigo. His camera glides through crowded parties and silent dawns with dreamlike fluidity, refusing the stability of classical framing. The long takes evoke both freedom and entrapment, while the chiaroscuro lighting turns every nightclub and street corner into a confessional. The soundtrack half sacred, half profane blurs the boundary between ecstasy and melancholy.

More than a film, La Dolce Vita is a diagnosis of a civilization intoxicated by its own reflection. Italian cinema becomes a mirror for a country asking itself a haunting question: how can one still live, still believe, when everything seems possible and nothing truly matters? Fellini’s Rome is both paradise and purgatory, a city where beauty and decay dance in the same frame: a vision that still defines the poetry and tragedy of modernity.

The 1980s–2000s: Memory and Melancholy

Cinema Paradiso (1988) — © Cristaldi Film / Les Films Ariane / RAI

Malèna (2000) — © Medusa Film / Miramax Films

When Cinema Paradiso was released in 1988, Italy had grown older. The fever of the postwar years had cooled, and Giuseppe Tornatore turned his camera toward the tenderness of what had been lost. His film is a love letter to a vanished world, a time when cinema bound together towns, generations, and hearts. Through Ennio Morricone’s soaring score and Tornatore’s warm, amber-lit images, memory becomes both comfort and wound. Every frame breathes nostalgia: the flicker of the projector, the glow on children’s faces, the dust dancing in the beam of light. Tornatore crafts his mise-en-scène like a ritual of remembrance : long tracking shots that caress the past, crossfades that mimic the hazy flow of memory. Cinema Paradiso is not only a homage to childhood and the screen as a window onto the world, but also a farewell. Italian cinema, here, looks into the rearview mirror, aware that it has lost something simple and pure. The collective magic of watching and believing together, slowly disappearing.

Twelve years later, Tornatore returned to the realm of memory with Malèna (2000). Yet this time, the nostalgia darkens. The gaze of an adolescent boy becomes a cruel mirror reflecting a town’s hypocrisy and desire. Monica Bellucci embodies both the splendor and the curse of beauty, a woman revered and destroyed by the same eyes that worship her.  Shot in soft, golden tones that contrast with the brutality of judgment, Tornatore’s direction exposes the moral fractures of rural Italy: cruelty disguised as propriety. The camera lingers on glances and silences, revealing a society haunted by its own repression, souls consumed by the residue of war and by the endless projection of their forbidden desires against their rigid moral codes.

Under the surface of its fable-like beauty, Malèna reveals the violence of a culture unable to love without condemning. Together, the two films trace the melancholy of a nation gazing backward, regretting not just its past, but its capacity for innocence.

The 2010s: Beauty as the Last Refuge

La Grande Bellezza (2013) – © Indigo Film / Medusa Film (and associated companies)

With La Grande Bellezza (2013), Paolo Sorrentino picks up the Fellinian torch and carries it into the 21st century. Jep Gambardella, the aging writer and socialite, gazes at Rome from his terrace like a spectator of his own decadence. Elegant, ironic, and quietly broken. The palaces, the parties, the Roman light : everything brightens with unbearable beauty, and yet everything rings hollow.

Sorrentino turns excess into poetry. His camera glides through amazing banquets, empty churches, and nocturnal wanderings with choreographed grace, composing each frame as if it were a baroque painting come alive. The editing dances to the rhythm of silence and music, electronic beats fading into sacred choirs, capturing a world drunk on its own spectacle. Behind the luxury of surfaces lies a deep exhaustion: the lack of meaning in an age oversaturated with images.

Where Fellini once filmed the birth of modernity, Sorrentino films its aftermath. La Grande Bellezza becomes both homage and requiem. A symphony of melancholy expressed by celebration. Beauty remains, but only as a last refuge, a fragile shield against the void.

From La Dolce Vita to La Grande Bellezza, the circle closes: the party never truly ended, but no one believes in it anymore.

Written by Jules Malard

A concert for students that highlights the saxophone

Musique, Nantes Culture, Spectacle vivant21 novembreaudenciaculture@gmail.com

On Wednesday 5 November, the Pays de la Loire National Orchestra (ONPL) gave its special student concert to mark the start of the season. The programme featured over an hour of classical music without an interval, exclusively for students who filled the concert hall at La Cité des Congrès, attracted by the chance to listen to these exceptional musicians for the very low price of 3€ per ticket. Each piece was accompanied by a detailed presentation, allowing even the most novice listener to understand the context in which the work was composed, what it is trying to convey, and how the composer conveys this message. The soloist also introduces us to her instruments, the alto and soprano saxophones, and explains how their inventor, the Belgian Adolphe Sax, conceived them at the end of the 19th century.

This year, the saxophone was in the spotlight with the participation of soloist Asya Fateyva, a young artist born in Crimea. She is very versatile as she can perform both original works for saxophone and arrangements of Baroque, Classical and Romantic compositions, and she showed it in the programme for this concert evening. Asya Fateyva opened the evening with a classical piece, the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra by Alexander Glazunov, a Russian composer from the late 19th century.

Alexandre Glazounov

Composed in 1934, Alexander Glazunov’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra in E-flat major is a pretty unique piece. It was the last major work he wrote while living in exile in Paris, and he packed into its single fifteen-minute movement all the warmth, lyricism, and nostalgia of late Romantic music.

Glazunov takes on the saxophone with ease, turning it into a kind of lyrical singer with a smooth, slightly melancholic tone. The solo line flows naturally and feels almost vocal. It is a true mix of inspiration between his birth country and the one where he lives, Russian richness with French elegance, all supported by a bright string orchestra. The concerto moves continuously from one contrasting section to another: a dreamy opening melody, a livelier middle part, and a brilliant final coda where the saxophone shines one last time. With its refined harmony, the piece has become one of the gems of the saxophone repertoire.

Following this piece, it was the turn of the soprano saxophone, the higher-pitched little brother of the famous alto saxophone, to shine with the Fantasia for Soprano Saxophone by Heitor Villa-Lobos, a self-taught Brazilian composer from the early 20th century.

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Composed in 1948 for French saxophonist Marcel Mule, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Fantasia for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra is a work at the crossroads of worlds — between European virtuosity and tropical flair. Villa-Lobos, a great ambassador of Brazilian culture, blends the influences of Bach, popular music from Rio and indigenous rhythms in a free and colourful style. In a single movement divided into three contrasting sections, the Fantasia highlights the chameleon-like character of the soprano saxophone: by turns singing, capricious, dazzling and dreamy. The instrument displays an ardent lyricism, supported by an orchestra that is both rhythmic and shimmering, where each phrase seems to breathe the warmth and freedom of Brazil.

After these two lesser-known orchestral works, the ONPL ended its concert with a more famous but equally magnificent piece: Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, this time without saxophone.

Alto Saxophone

Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, ‘Rhenish’, composed by Robert Schumann in 1850, is a work inspired by the River Rhine and the love of Schumann for the Düsseldorf region, where the composer had just settled. Despite being known for deep and tortured compositions, Schumann wrote this piece as a love letter to this region, making the Symphony No. 3 lighter than most of his works. Unlike classical forms, it has five movements, which follow one another like the chapters of a symphonic poem. It starts with a triumphant overture, followed by a folk dance with rustic accents, a slow movement of great tenderness, a solemn episode evoking a ceremony in Cologne Cathedral, and a radiant finale. With its balance of orchestral power, intimate lyricism and spiritual fervour, the ‘Rhenish’ stands out as one of the finest achievements of German Romanticism.

Robert Schumann

The saxophone: a classical instrument?

The absence of the saxophone from the classical scene can mainly be explained by the late date of its creation by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. Indeed, the Romantic orchestral formation was already well established at that time, which explains the difficulty of integrating the saxophone into it, whereas it enjoyed some success in military bands.

However, the saxophone lends itself very well to classical use. It was created for this purpose to fill a gap in the orchestra’s sound palette. Sax observed that the brass (horns, trumpets, trombones, etc.) and woodwinds (flutes, clarinets, oboes, etc.) lacked a real connection between their timbres. Brass instruments are powerful but rigid, woodwinds expressive but less sonorous. He therefore imagined creating an instrument capable of uniting these opposing qualities: the flexibility of woodwind and the projection of brass. Despite its metallic appearance, the saxophone has a much softer sound than brass instruments due to its single reed, similar to that of the clarinet. However, with the exception of a few composers such as Bizet, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev and Glazunov, who were able to take advantage of its versatility, it is not used in this role as a classical orchestral instrument.

So even though the saxophone is a popular instrument, it is thanks to its contribution to jazz music and not for its unique contribution in classical pieces. It is under a totally different light that the ONPL decided to show it to us last night.

Promoting classical music in the region

For many years, the ONPL has been organising concerts for students in Nantes and Angers, in collaboration with student associations from various schools and universities in the cities.

These student concerts are part of a range of cultural activities carried out by the orchestra. Among the most notable initiatives, the ONPL has been playing music for patients at Nantes University Hospital since 2008, with nearly 50 concerts and performances at patients’ bedsides each season. For the past three years, the orchestra has also been playing in the Le Ranzay-La Halvêque neighbourhood in Nantes and Grand-Pigeon – Saint-Exupéry neighbourhoods in Angers, notably through musical breakfasts, exchanges with musicians, stage talks, creative workshops, musical moments for young children and chamber music concerts as part of its Orchestre dans la Cité project. The ONPL has also been playing in prisons in the region for nine years now, explaining that access to culture is essential for rehabilitation.

‘Music helps build bridges, broaden horizons and promote the reintegration of beneficiaries.’

Breaking away from cultural elitism

These actions demonstrate the desire of a representative of institutional culture such as the ONPL to open its doors and break away from the cultural elitism so often associated with the world of classical music.

By choosing to include pieces by less famous composers written for an instrument that is almost absent from the classical repertoire due to its late invention, the ONPL is once again demonstrating its desire to bring people together. When it comes to these pieces, everyone is on the same level, whether they are classical music lovers or complete novices. Everyone discovers and marvels at the sounds of the saxophone accompanied by the orchestra, and everyone appreciates the technical explanations, historical details and presentation of the composers.

Another indication that may seem trivial but says a lot about the ONPL’s attitude towards cultural elitism is their approach to applause between movements of the same piece. This gesture of applauding between two movements may seem insignificant, but it is a real tool of social distinction. That makes those who applaud appear to be novices, while those ‘in the know’ show the extent of their cultural capital through their silence. This tradition, like many traditions, is relatively recent, because in Bach and Mozart’s time, applause and shouting during concerts were commonplace, even encouraged by composers. The emergence of this tradition demonstrates the sacralisation and ritualistic dimension that has developed around classical music. This raises the question of whether concert halls, during classical concerts, are not transforming into giant spectacles where, instead of appreciating the music, people come to consume this ritualistic and perfectly codified atmosphere.

This rule, normally unspoken, was explained verbally by the concert presenter, breaking one of the most important tools of social distinction in the world of classical music and, at the same time, the sanctification of music in favour the real appreciation of its quality and its unifying strength.

To summarize

By continuing this annual tradition of student concerts, the ONPL reaffirms its progressive vision of classical art, focused on sharing and discovery. This concert shows the saxophone in a different light, bridging the gap between jazz and classical music. The musicians also open the door to everyone without exception by presenting the codes and customs that litter the world of classical music in an explicit and critical manner, without which this concert would be just another moment of social distinction.

If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to open yourself up to this genre of music, which can seem — quite rightly in many cases — rather exclusive, you should know that the ONPL offers students last-minute tickets for 3€. But even several months in advance, the reduced rates for young people make concert tickets very attractive.

Personally, and based on the work of Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher from the Frankfurt school who worked a lot on the concept of art, I believe that the more novices attend these concerts, the more orchestras will open up to this new audience, and the more the codes will be broken. As the reactionary ritualistic dimension of classical music will be destroyed, its progressive dimension of exposure will grow, and classical music will take on its role as music, which is to bring people together. So do not hesitate, go and discover this wonderful art and participate in giving it the magnetizing strength it has the potential to have!

Author: Gabriel MAGET

Sources :

https://onpl.fr/la-saison/action-culturelle-saison

Programmation Concert Symphonique pour les étudiants ONPL

https://www.ouest-france.fr/pays-de-la-loire/angers-49000/si-vous-etes-etudiant-a-angers-voici-un-bon-plan-pour-ecouter-de-la-musique-classique-cette-semaine-326c4188-b8c9-11f0-9097-68e77b575996

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applaudissement#Concerts_classiques

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heitor_Villa-Lobos

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Glazounov

All pictures used are open source