"In the spring of 2017, on the occasion of Le Havre’s 500th anniversary, visual artists, designers, graphic designers, choreographers, directors and novelists will retrace the steps of Niemeyer and Monet, reinterpreting this amazing city in order to reveal it to Europe — and perhaps to itself.

Arriving in Le Havre, Niemeyer’s “Volcano” is a monument open to the sky; Océane Port leads to a beach frequented by tranquil bathers who watch the horizon, as the world’s largest container ships pass by.

Le Havre is full of strange images. This photogenic city initially seduced arriving artists with its light — today, this element of its landscape has become so well- known it verges on cliché — but it won them over with its atmosphere, which the proposed artworks will reveal. How to recreate an ambiance, to rediscover the depth of a city, through artistic gestures that will to bring it to life?

Le Havre, rebuilt in the fifties by the studio of architect Auguste Perret and declared a World Heritage Site in 2005, clearly deserves to become one France’s most desired urban tourism destinations.

We need only to understand this city, to love it, to highlight and discover those who can bring it to life with their energy and talent, to treat it boldly but fairly, to bring out its strangeness, and its overwhelming poetry. "

Jean Blaise, Art Director