"Château d'eau" - Carole Benzaken

For one month, LA CASERNE hosts the artistic project by Carole Benzaken titled “Château d’eau”.

Working with monumental space, these suspended strips of irregularly cut material inhabit and accompany the verticality of LA CASERNE’s stairwells, evoking a cascading waterfall, torrents of rain, or—recalling the building’s original function—the life-giving, forceful water jets from fire hoses.

Images of buildings (Parisian façades, lush and humid green landscapes) are turned upside down and interwoven into a chaotic, abstract composition, reflecting the history of Paris, its urban development, and its centuries of transformations, demolitions, and reconstructions.

About Carole Benzaken:

“The fire station on rue Philippe de Girard particularly marked my arrival in the neighborhood in 1995. At the time, it was a completely deserted area between the railway tracks of Gare de l’Est and its beautiful viaduct on rue de l’Aqueduc, a street opened under the Second Empire that runs alongside the fire station and…