Well, I'll be!

This vision finds a particular resonance in art singulier (singular art). Often driven by powerful, unconventional personal journeys—frequently from the margins—this art form asserts the primacy of the creative gesture, the inner impulse, and personal necessity. It seeks no aesthetic conformity; instead, it emerges wherever creative energy insists on making itself known.

Here, the artwork is no longer a finished product destined for judgment, classification, or purchase, but rather the trace of a living process. It becomes a space where imagination, freedom, fragility, and dreams come to rest. A place of dreams within a hotel for transients.

Housed in a former geriatric hospital, a temporary community hub known as "Les Grandes Voisines" came into being. It shelters 575 refugees from diverse backgrounds—along with their dreams—while the ground floor hosts various project teams (including our own) and the top floor houses a 3-star training hotel "Le Grand Barnum." Its creation was driven by a dream shared by the Salvation Army Foundation and the Biennale Hors Normes: to exhibit singular works by artists from France and beyond. Consequently, 575 artworks are displayed throughout the hotel, centered around a pop-up exhibition space: "Plato’s Cave."

When the elevator doors open on the fourth floor, you are greeted by the works—bearing the title "Ah ça quand même !" (Well, I'll be!)—and as you make your way to your room, they invite you to dream: both with yourself and with—or about—the other.