Led by the Yes We Camp association, the “Buropolis” project ends as planned on June 15th.
The temporary occupation of this 10,000 m² office building showed the dynamism and needs of the Marseille art scene.
It also made it possible to identify the conditions for new projects of this type.
No rab for "Buropolis".
The city of artists, which had temporarily settled in a vast office building promised for the demolition of the Sainte-Marguerite district in Marseille, will indeed close its doors.
The adventure will therefore have lasted eighteen months as planned, the conditions (financial in particular) not being met to extend the temporary occupation by a few months.
But for Yes We Camp, the association behind the project, this end clap is not a failure.
Quite the contrary.
“We identified a bubbling Marseilles, there at least it is formalized”, thus states Raphaël Haziot, coordinator of the project.
It must be said that the initial bet is quite crazy, given the size of the site: 10,000 m² spread over nine floors.
“We thought we would have difficulty filling it, and it went so quickly, we know that the need is there, he continues.
During the 18 months of occupation, there were 350 artists who went through it, and 150 people on the waiting list.
Among the occupants, about a third arrived recently in Marseille.
"It's a fairly blatant manifestation of a need for spaces for artistic production", summarizes, falsely candid, Antoine Plane, director of Yes We Camp.
"Marseille is attractive, it won't stop"
On the town hall side, also present at the press conference, the message gets through.
"Marseille is attractive, it's not going to stop, the question that is being asked on a larger scale today is to meet the needs for installation with residences and artists' studios, reacts Jean-Marc Coppola , Culture Assistant.
We are faced with this responsibility of finding solutions”.
Even the mayor of the sector Lionel Royer-Perreaut (ex-LR) loose: "There is a lack of artists' studios at affordable prices, that's the real subject".
He adds: “The city of Marseille, the department, Soleam, everyone has heritage.
“Letting it be understood that the ZAC de la Capelette could be a track.
If Jean-Marc Coppola also evokes as transitional solutions the great school plan or the school of architecture which will be released within a year, he recognizes that he does not have "an immediate solution" to provide.
“There will be arbitrations by the summer”, he advances, saying “to understand the concern of the next day”.
In the meantime, the move of the workshops where 250 artists still work is being prepared in Buropolis, at the same time as the last exhibition which will take place within the framework of the Printemps de l'art contemporain.
No less than three years of occupation in the future
Antoine, sculptor, already knows where he will put his suitcases next year.
He found a scholarship in Madrid.
For three years that she has been in Marseilles, after fifteen years in Berlin, the artist Sophie Bueno-Boutellier has the impression of never having been able to really unpack her studio, moving from a transitory place to another.
"It's complicated to invest in a place when it's not sustainable," she says.
For the director of the Koutrajmé school of free film training, Marie-Antonnelle Pompidou, the departure from Buropolis is "catastrophic".
Finding new premises is not easy.
“To innovate, we need structures like Yes We Camp,” she explains.
You signed us a lease while we have no seniority, allowed to meet the right people.
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According to the cultural representative, “Buropolis has become a brand”.
For Yes We Camp, which is looking for new places of temporary occupation, this project has in any case made it possible to define new specifications for the future: a duration which is at least three years, places not too dilapidated and expensive to bring up to public reception standards, an area of 3,500 to 15,000 m².
And also premises on the ground floor for certain artistic practices, such as sculpture, so that the working conditions of artists are less precarious.
The director of Yes We Can, Antoine Plane, appeals to communities but also to the SNCF, the Church or the private sector who have land available to accommodate such projects.
"Transitional urban planning is not a panacea, but it is an immediate, urgent response to needs", he assures us.
Especially in Marseille, where there are for example only a dozen municipal studio-housing for artists, when there are about 2,500 in Paris.
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