Un endroit libre

The video Un endroit libre is an integral part of La Ville Côtière project.

Un endroit libre is the introductory clip of La Ville Côtière project. Like an advertisement, this short video highlights the utopia on which this imaginary city is based, a vision developed from personal projections and the theories of libertarian authors such as David Friedman, who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist. Libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism defends the idea of a stateless and entirely privatized society: streets, roads, beaches, schools, hospitals, police, justice, and the army included. A society where social policy would be reduced to the charitable goodwill of the wealthiest. Deeply opposed to this ideology, I have paradoxically become interested in those who consider it ideal and how they defend it in order to imagine an imaginary libertarian world.

It is unclear if La Ville Côtière takes place in the future or in a parallel world to our own. This vision of the future echoes our Western societies in the aftermath of the Panama Papers scandal and on the eve of the adoption of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This is the unease that this work is meant to create. This dystopia, cloaked in advertising messages, gradually reveals darker aspects that invite us to reconsider our own society, its obsession with growth, and the dramatic consequences of economic liberalism on individuals.


Translated extract from the cartel notice for the group show Liaisons équivoques, 2016, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole, Dole, France