Update: You can find more information on ‘I Park Art’ locations on this Facebook page!

For this new C’est la vie in France rendezvous we had to make a choice: talking about a new French law banning the burqa or about an art project. We chose art but we couldn’t totally ignore the ban on full-face veils in public.

So let’s start with a few links so you will know what is happening in France on the ‘serious’ side; then we will talk about the ‘artistic’ side.

Here are the links:

– France Enforces Ban on Full-Face Veils in Public (NYTimes)
– France burka ban: Q&A (The Telegraph)
– French police detain veil ban protesters (The Guardian)
– Nick Kristof’s Facebook page

Now let’s talk about I Park Art, an urban creative guerrilla project. We already knew about this great event through Max Dana but @LaParigina reminded it to us when she tweeted about her participation. She will be one of the many artists in France (Paris, Toulouse, Lyon, Caen…) but also in several other cities in Europe, to show her work in the streets next Saturday. You can read her blog post (in French).

About I Park Art (read more here):

I Park Art is an urban creative guerrilla project that promotes the re-appropriation of the public space through artistic actions. The idea is based on the temporary offer of an exposition area in a circumscribed part of the city, and it‘s realized through the temporary occupation of a public parking, not used to park a car but to expose Art. In order to put the idea into practice, the basis is to use a paying car park: the toll in fact is a contract that enable the temporary occupation of a portion of public space formally used for vehicles, but for which the norm does not declare explicitly which must be “the object” to place there […] So it creates an urban gallery that can be freely interpreted and freely moved from a place to the other in different dates: the Art shows itself to the public and invades the city with its mass and its colors, moves without brake creating amazement and declaring with force its own existence…

 Which news do you think is the most ‘interesting’? Do you think both are about ‘free expression’? Tell us!