Art Beneath the Pont Alexandre III

By Monique Y. Wells

Paris is an artist’s paradise.  Art is everywhere – from the grandest museums to the most humble galleries – and even on the walls and sidewalks around town. So what better place to bring children for a cultural experience featuring their own artistic talents?

 

 

 

This is precisely what Shelley Bradford-Bell, former executive director of the Bayview Opera House in San Francisco and owner of SBB Global Communications, has done.  In June 2007, she and several chaperones from the Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco descended on the City of Light with 14 children for an extraordinarily enlightening journey.

 

 

 

Their trip began in Senegal .  In Dakar , they visited Gorée Island , going to the Maison des Enslaves and touring the Island .  The children had prepared works of art prior to embarking on their trip, which they displayed at an art show beside the swimming pool at the Hotel Fana in Dakar .  Radio Africa interviewed them for a future broadcast.  The gardener of the hotel was so moved by what the kids were doing that he changed out of his uniform into regal robes to return to the reception.  He was nearly in tears when he told Bradford-Bell how emotional the event was for him and how important he felt it was that the cultural excursions continue.

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop – Paris .  Here, the children visited La Cité des Sciences at  La Villette, painted under the Eiffel Tower, visited Montmartre and painted in the Place du Tertre.  They were invited to the home of Velma Bury, widow of the renowned Belgian sculptor Pol Bury, and were shown several of Bury’s works.  There, they learned about motion in art and how Bury used it in his work. And as the culmination of the visit, they participated in another art show.  This one was held in a phenomenal space beneath – yes, beneath – the Pont Alexandre III!

 

 

 

 

 

The Culée Rive Gauche is an enormous chamber located under the southern end of the bridge.  In existence since 1999, this space has been the site of numerous artistic endeavors, including the creation of the film La Bataille Navale (Patrick Brunie and Alain Depardieu). The children’s art was displayed amongst the oeuvre of professional artists in an exposition that celebrated the plastic arts from Africa .  Called “Un Pont et Une Fenêtre Sur… L’Afrique”, it featured the collection of Marie-Laure Croiziers de Lacvivier (niece of the late Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor) and the works of contemporary African artists.  The children’s works, consisting of watercolors created in San Francisco and sand paintings created in Dakar , occupied an entire wall in the exposition.

 

 

 

 

 

Nieka Carson, age 12, is pictured here with Bradford-Bell.  This excursion represented her first trip with the group and only the second airplane trip that she had ever taken.  She created three works of art for the Paris exposition, including a sand painting called African Man standing in the Doorway of No Return that she says represents a man of African descent returning home through the door where his ancestors had been forced to leave the Mother Continent centuries ago.  Nieka and the other children had their faces painted for the event by body painting artist Beatrice d'Eaubonne .

 

 

 

Bradford-Bell organized the first of these trips back in 2004. The impetus was a rehearsal for a fashion show at the Opera House, where several kids refused to model with Muslim students because they believed that Muslims blew up the World Trade Center .  Bradford-Bell knew at that moment that she wanted and needed to do something to teach these children how to be global citizens – persons who want to understand and embrace the world in which we live.  Croiziers de Lacvivier said to Bradford-Bell, “When you teach art, you teach culture.” And there began a partnership of commitment between the two women to expose the children of Hunters Point to a bigger, brighter world.

 

 

 

The San Francisco Alliance Française partnered with the Bayview Opera House to provide French lesions for the children.  Senegalese-American Ismaile Biaye served as teacher for many of the kids selected to participate in the excursion.  He acted as interpreter and guide for the 2004 trip.  Two local artists worked with the children to help them develop an art project that they could share with children in Senegal and France .  And Croiziers de Lacvivier’s contacts in both Senegal and France provided the ultimate support to make the trip a success.  The June 2007 trip was organized in a similar fashion, with Biaye and Croiziers de Lacvivier being as intricately involved in this excursion as they were in the 2004 project.  The five children who participated in the 2004 excursion were invited to participate in the 2007 trip, and nine additional children were also invited to participate.

 

 

 

 

 

Bradford-Bell hopes that this trip will be one of many voyages that will expose underprivileged children to a world far beyond their neighborhoods in the inner cities of the United States . She is planning to return to Dakar and Paris in three years with a larger group of students from the Bay Area, Atlanta , Chicago and/or New York .  The next trip will be organized under the auspices of a new non-profit organization called Global Arts and Education Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

A separate trip will include only the students who took the 2004 and 2007 journeys.  Bradford-Bell plans to take them to Brazil and Panama in 2009.  The goal of the program is to take students as young as age 9 on annual or bi-annual cultural journeys around the world.

 

 

Monique Y. Wells is co-founder of Discover Paris! – Personalized Itineraries for Independent Travelers.