We had to hurry away from the bar Floréal because there were several other things I wanted to see and it was getting late. Our next call was not far away at the Cité des trois fushias, blocks of modern ten-storey flats around a large courtyard.
Cité des trois fushias
The first problem was getting in through the security gate from the street to the courtyard, solved in the normal way of waiting until someone came out! We then wandered around inside, vaguely hoping to see some notice telling us about this Photo-Off event, but these were too small and insignificant for us to see. Finally one of the group concerned, Colectif Tribuydom, who were setting up a film for later, saw us wandering around and took pity on us. He phoned a friend to get the security code and took us over to the block on the east side of the court and let us in.
Here we found, in the lobby and on selected doors off the stairway all the way up to the 10th floor were images, largely photographic in some way, meant to relate to the inhabitants, the cite and the quarter.
Slowly we climbed our way up the stairs, stopping to look at the various doors, and to photograph all or most of them in some way. It was a long way to the top of the block, and by the time we got half way we realised it would have been more sensible to take the lift up and walk down!
I’m not sure that it was really worth the effort – and perhaps something that is more for the people who live there than outsiders – but it was certainly one of the more unusual experiences of the Photo-Off, and a reminder of what a broad church photography is. I’ll put a few more pictures from the show in the Paris supplement to My London Diary shortly
