A journey into the cultural politics of Nantes

For the past thirty years, the innovative and ambitious cultural politics of the city of Nantes can be appreciated by a number of events held or actions taken there, such as ‘Les Allumées’, the ‘Lieu unique’, ‘Estuaire’, and ‘Le Voyage à Nantes’. Together they have taken art and culture out of their usual areas and brought them into the heart of the city and the region. This approach, which has helped to transform the image of the city, its everyday life and its economy, is the result of a rare coming-together of the long history of the city’s political commitment to culture and the path taken by one man, Jean Blaise. Blaise was at the beginning of the French movement to bring culture to the population, and he was also a former director of the national theatre. In Nantes, he has literally gone ‘beyond the city walls’ by focussing his attention on the region outside the city, as he is convinced that national theatres and other such institutional places have not provided sufficient access to culture. He claims that one has to understand and get to know the region in order to be able to bring to life even the craziest of projects.