Quai 36 street art in Versailles celebrates Bernard de Jussieu’s neighborhood

Since 2019 the Bernard de Jussieu district in Versailles – about 40 minutes drive from the famous palace – is investing in urban and social regeneration through street art, becoming an open-air museum. It happens thanks to Quai 36, an association founded in 2015 during the creation of some artistic residences at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Since then, various projects were born whose main theme is the role of nature and animal instinct in our lives. The #1096 project in Versailles brought in a year ten international artists for ten large facades measuring 150 square meters each: first Eron (Italy), Telmo Miel (Holland), Waone (Ukraine), Seth (France), Jade Rivera (Peru) and, from summer 2020, Aryz (Spain), Sainer (Poland), Pastel (Argentina), Mona Caron (Switzerland) and Saddo (Romania). Here, the connection between man and nature is linked with botanist Bernard de Jussieu, who gave the name to the neighborhood.

Nature flourishes on the great palaces of these streets, as in Respire by Seth, where a little girl clings to a cloth revealing a lush garden (a likely homage to the trompe l'oeil, a technique that historically was developed in this city). The same effect occurs in Le Monument di Eron, in which three-dimensional hands seem to break the two-dimensionality of the surface in an attempt to hold the doves in flight. And again, in The Curious Botanist by Waone, the alter ego of Bernard de Jussieu is portrayed in the intent of observing a flower with a magnifying glass, in which he projects his own image. With the aim of providing a cultural and dynamic impulse and working in close contact with the community, Quai 36 organizes participatory artistic workshops for families and children.