POCKETS OF CALM

Paris, April 29-30, 2025

In Paris this week the heat shot up to summer temperatures. At the CEDRE @caritasfrance we set up the table in a shady spot in the courtyard and prolonged it with a separate table for clay. The garden had come into flower, the atmosphere was serene and there was time for long conversations and detailed work. One man drew page after page of caricatures, scarcely pausing. Another, who was there with his two little daughters, wrote a poem and talked about his admiration for Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Baudelaire. A third, told a story from the Coran about a prophet with a basket of figs who went to sleep for a hundred years : when he woke up the figs were still fresh.

On the other side of the courtyard there was music and dancing, the two little girls joining in with shakers, before coming over to play at the table.

The next day we were dismayed to find a huge bulldozer parked just outside the CEDRE next to the little market, probably to dislodge the tents that have sprung up on the traffic island under the ring road. But the same serenity permeated our session at La Semeuse where we were again joined by the association Melting Point, (a solidarity network for LGBTQI+ people in exile seeking asylum in France.) Around the table bracelets were made and images copied, traced and re-interpreted.

A few cyanotypes were made in the sun, and some men from Somalia we had invited from the CEDRE were pleased to be welcomed and to discover this new space. Local residents popped in and out, we found ourselves sitting back and watching interactions, and thinking how extraordinary it is that people manage to find these pockets of calm in the busy dirty city.

Words by Kate France & Naomi Press.