Palisades / Correction structures
Installation Nuit Blanche, Paris, 4 - 5 October 2003.
© Phœbé Meyer
Bar palissade: a "corrective structure"
Niek van de Steeg's intervention is a reaction  to the  urban development of the Paris Rive Gauche  district.  For the space  of a night, the  artist  is taking  over the site of a future construction. Between  the Frigos and  the Grands Moulins de Paris, at the intersection of Rue Thomas-Mann and Rue René-Goscinny. he is using  building site equipment found locally to construct a wooden  enclosure  of about  2.000 square metres.  Niek van de Steeg is working  with what  already exists  to create  a singular environment.
According  to Van de Steeg.  this imagined or transformed building site constitutes a "corrective structure". The notion of "correction" is one that  he  uses regularly  in his work. Here. it is applied  to the specifie context  of a developing  town. During the night.  Van de Steeg  will "correct" the reality of this quarter. setting  up an ephemeral architecture. at once a space  under  construction and  a place  for life, for encounters and  pleasures.
The  terrain  delimited by the wooden  fencing  is like a genuine architectural  project, set on a parcel of land under construction and bounded  by pavements.  All allong the fencing   between  one and two metres  from the top, there is a slit through  which  those in the street  can see  into the enclosure. At one end of the terrain , on the  Rue René-Goscinny side  is the entrance to this ephemeral structure  Two "mini-kiosks" frame the opening  and indicate  the ingress  to the site. Inside the  nature of the ground changes The tarmac of the street g1ves way to the  packed earth  of the building site.  At the  heart  of this space, opposite  the entrance, stands the main "kiosk". Built from the same  horizontally-split fencing. its interior  bathed  in green  light, its twofold function  is to provide music and serve  as a bar  Near this bar, in blue light, a cicular dance  floor 1s marked out on the ground   Overhanging this is the DJ's booth,  bathed  in red light. In this Bar palissade,  their feet on packed earth  and  their ears  filled with low-techno,  the public is invited to live, exchange, dance  and dream  in a fragment  of architecture awaiting completion Alexis Bertrand
Curated by Camille Morrineau.
With the participation of the city of Paris and Radio FG.