Two weeks ago today, my husband, the Uber-Mensch, took a much deserved (but unexpected) ‘comp’ day. I had been planning to spend the afternoon at the
Grand Palais to view an art installation that all of Paris was raving about. I tried to go one Saturday, but the line was hours long. So I cleared my agenda for that particular Friday and since the exhibit was already in its last days, I would not be deterred. Fortunately, the U-M decided to come along.
Down the hill from our apartment building, we crossed our neighborhood
Parc St. Perrine and caught the 72 bus, whose route follows the
Seine from the southern 16th
arrondissement to the center of Paris. It offers perhaps the cheapest way to see the most stunning views of Paris as it passes the
Eiffel Tower and
Trocadero,
Place de la Concorde and
Tuileries Gardens, the
Musée d’Orsay and
Musée du Louvre,
Ile de La Cité and the
Conciergerie, before stopping directly in front of the
Hôtel de Ville, Paris’ city hall, its final destination.
Needless to say, the 72 is our favorite route to town from our quiet corner of the city. But on this day we stopped about half-way, at the site of three other famous Paris monuments: the
Alexandre III Bridge,
Grand and
Petit Palais, all three built for the 1900 World’s Fair.
The
Grand Palais is one of Paris’ most exquisite buildings. Part
Beaux-Arts, part
Art Nouveau in style, it was built as an exhibition hall and remains one today. Its imposing neo-classical stone exterior gives way to an impressive webbed dome of glass and metal. On the inside, the
Art Nouveau structure of sculpted iron sweeps delicately and dramatically toward the sky, making you the feel as if you could lift off and fly. It is the perfect place to view an art exhibition.
The exhibit we had come to see that day:
6 milliards d’Autres (in English:
6 billion Others).
It is a must-see.Conceived by famed French photographer,
Yann Arthus-Bertrand in collaboration with
GoodPlanet Association,
6 milliards d’Autres is a monumental attempt to foster common understandings amongst fellow human beings. Using 21st century technological tools, the project forges human connections across language, culture, frontier, and creed. It punctuates the universality of humankind through numerous beautifully edited video montages of interviews with 6,000 people from 65 cultures from the four corners of the world.
All the interviewees were asked the same questions concerning human issues, emotions, and values.
What is happiness? What is the meaning of life? What is your greatest fear? The
intimacy and honesty of their responses reveal not simply the commonality of human existence, but also the power of listening, of allowing someone to be heard. From the participants, we discover that, at base, people the world over feel and desire and believe in very similar things. The wisdom of the bushman, the fears of the refugee, and the joys of young mother of three, compel us to look inside ourselves and search for answers to the same questions. Through listening, spectators become participants as well, and like those interviewed, we are changed by the experience. We leave the exhibit seeing both self and other in a new light.
The experience reminds us, too, that we are not alone on the earth, and that to solve the great ills of our time - climate change, poverty, war, AIDS - we must all work as one. In the words of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, “There are over six billion of us on this earth and there is no chance of any kind of sustainable development if we can’t manage to live together.”
The exhibition has now left Paris to travel the world. You may not get to see it in the
Grand Palais as I did, but I urge you to buy a multiple-entry ticket the minute you hear that
6 billion Others is coming to your town. You won’t regret taking part in this example of living history.
Images:
Exterior of the Grand Palais and the Pont Alexandre III courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Interior of the Grand Palais courtesy of Sarah B. Towle, 2009.
Until the development of ski tourism in the 20th century, the Haute Savoie was a remote mountain region known for cattle farming. Traditional Savoyard cuisine reflects this in its rich array of cheeses. The most famous cheese, Reblochon, boasts a history dating to the 13th century. Feudal peasant-farmers then grazed their cows on mountain pastures belonging to the medieval manor. They paid the master in milk. On the day he came to collect his due, the farmers would only partially milk the cows. A second milking resulted in a much fattier product, which they used to make cheese. Its name comes from the French word “re-blocher”, meaning to re-milk.
The Haute Savoie is bordered by Italy to the south-east and Switzerland to the north and east. Geneva is the closest city to serve skiers coming to the Haute Savoie by air. It is home to 110 ski stations. Val Thorens, built in 1972, is one of eight ski stations in the 
