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A portrait of the writer, poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor (1909-2001), through his cultural policy following Senegal’s independence. Senghor and the arts. Reinventing the Universal puts into perspective the thoughts and achievements in the cultural sphere of the Senegalese intellectual and statesman, President of Senegal from 1960 to 1980, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1909-2001). A pioneer of Négritude, a political and literary movement initiated with Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, Suzanne Césaire, Jane and Paulette Nardal, Senghor defended the idea of a civilisation of the universal, shaped by the “rendezvous of giving and receiving”. Under this metaphor of exchange, of “cultural crossbreeding”, he expressed the hope of uniting traditions and initiating “the dialogue of cultures”. By reinventing and de-Westernising the notion of the universal, he affirmed Africa’s role in writing its own history. The exhibition looks at Senegal’s cultural policy and diplomacy in the aftermath of independence, its major achievements in the visual and performing arts, but also its limitations. Senghor’s thought has not left the post-independence generations indifferent; it has been widely discussed, criticised and commented on in successive re-readings. Place: Quai Branly Jacques Chirac Museum Date: until 19 November 2023. Address : 37 Quai Jacques Chirac 75007 Paris Timing: Tuesday to Sunday, 10.30am to 7pm. Fare: €12 Transport: RER C station Pont de l’Alma Bus 42 to Tour Eiffel station. Bus 63 – 80 – 92 Bosquet Rapp station

On 15 April 2019, a violent fire struck the cathedral. In the wake of this disaster, a major restoration project was launched, financed thanks to the generosity of 340,000 donors from 150 countries who had been mobilised since the night of the fire. The worksite is under the responsibility of a dedicated public institution, which will be set up on 1 December 2019. The restoration project, presented in July 2020 to the Commission nationale du patrimoine et de l’architecture (National Commission for Heritage and Architecture) and unanimously approved, has chosen to remain faithful to the damaged monument and to the authenticity of the materials used. In 2024, it will return Notre-Dame Cathedral to the faithful and visitors from all over the world. An exceptional human adventure is taking place in the heart of Paris and in numerous workshops throughout France: journeymen, craftsmen, architects, engineers and researchers are all mobilised to bring the building back to life. These men and women are part of the long line of builders who have shaped the history of this world heritage site. The result of a co-production between the public body responsible for the conservation and restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, the project owner, and the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, this exhibition offers a privileged link with the building, which is currently inaccessible to the public. It provides an opportunity to discover the expertise of the craftsmen and artisans who are working to make the cathedral open to worship and visitors in 2024. Lastly, it provides an opportunity to highlight the ongoing and evolving techniques used on heritage sites. Date: until 01 June 2024 Venue: Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine. Address: 1 Place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre 75116 Paris. Price: €9.00 Access : Line 6 station : Trocadéro

The temporary nautical base on the bras Marie has just arrived and will be open until 03 September 2023. This is your chance to paddle every Sunday in a canoe or kayak on the Seine, opposite Ile Saint-Louis. It promises to be a hot summer in Paris, and there’s no better way to cool off. The Bras Marie water sports centre is the perfect place to admire the heart of the capital from a cool angle. Located opposite Ile Saint-Louis, you can take to the water every Sunday in a canoe or kayak, all free of charge. A trip along the Seine in the sunshine is a great way to (re)discover the architectural wonders of the City of Light. For unforgettable Sundays, the canoes and kayaks are available free of charge from the age of 15! Minors must be accompanied by an adult. Date: every Sunday until 03 September 2023. Location: Bras Marie water sports centre Address: 68-74 quai de la Rapée 75012 Paris Price: Free. Access: Metro line 5, Quai de la Rapée station.

Come and discover or rediscover the legendary ballet of Swan Lake, adapted for the pleasure of young and old. A choreography of the highest quality, elaborated by Fabrice Bourgeois, ballet master at the Paris Opera, featuring a troupe of professional dancers, under the artistic direction of Karl Paquette, star dancer of the Paris Opera. A simplified story in two acts with a narration that will allow easy access to the mythical story of Prince Siegfried and Odette, to the music of Tchaikovsky. A ballet of a duration adapted to the young public (2×40 mn with intermission).   Date : from November 19, 2022 to March 05, 2023 Place : Théâtre Mogador Address : 25 rue de Mogador 75009 Paris Price : from €25 to €69 Metro : line 12 Trinité d’Estienne D’orves station line 09 Havre Caumartin station RER A station Auber

This exhibition gives us the opportunity to dream about a crossroads of civilizations, in the heart of Central Asia, in Uzbekistan, where the names of Samarkand and Bukhara resonate. But many other commercial oases in this country have revealed works that are now classified as World Heritage sites. World Heritage Site. A large selection of these masterpieces, which have never left the country and have been specially restored, are presented in this exhibition, such as the monumental wall paintings of the ambassadors’ palace in Samarkand and its region, pages from one of the oldest monumental Korans from the beginning of Islam from Katta Langar, in Sogdiana, and other treasures in gold from Bactria (Dalverzintep), in silver, in silk, in ceramics. It is also an opportunity to admire some masterpieces of the famous 16th-century Bukhara school of miniature painting. Thanks to exceptional loans from major European museums, the exhibition brings together nearly 130 works and invites us to take a journey through space and time. This account of seventeen centuries of fabulous history allows us to understand how this region on the borders of China and India was able to fascinate Alexander the Great, but also the Caliphs of Baghdad, beyond the Iranian world, towards the east. This area of exchange and cultural influence allowed Western and Eastern civilizations to dialogue and mix harmoniously.   Date: from 23 November 2022 to 6 March 2023. Location: Louvre Museum. Address : Rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris Price: €17 Schedule: Wednesday to Monday from 9 am to 6 pm. Metro : line 1 Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre station

The Centre Georges Pompidou is holding a retrospective exhibition devoted to Gérard Garouste, one of the most important contemporary French painters, born in 1946, who is a figurationist without concession. Gérard Garouste was a student at the Beaux-arts de Paris at the end of the 1960s, and his reading of Marcel Duchamp’s interviews with Pierre Cabanne prompted him to defy the ban on painting at a time when conceptual practices were the order of the day. Thus, he became a painter, in the most traditional sense of the term, focusing on technique, which he never ceased to perfect, by observing the masters in the Louvre: Poussin, El Greco, Tintoretto… In the 1980s, he began to create large paintings under the sign of Greek mythology, to which he superimposed his personal mythology around the figures of the Classic, the Indian, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, which, according to him, is in all of us. Alongside 120 major paintings, often of very large format, the exhibition also gives a place to the sculpture and graphic work. This exhibition allows us to grasp the full richness of Gérard Garouste’s unclassifiable career, whose life of study, but also of madness, and his enigmatic work, feed off each other in a striking dialogue. With his large figurative canvases, the artist revisits the history of art through the genres of painting, which he seeks to exhaust. The exhibition dedicated to him follows step by step the path and the personal mythology of one of the most important French painters.   Museum : Centre Georges Pompidou Address : Place Georges Pompidou 75004 Paris Price : 15€. Schedule: open from Wednesday to Tuesday from 11am to 9pm. Metro : Hôtel de Ville station lines 1 and 11 Châtelet station lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14 RER : Châtelet-les Halles lines A, B, D

On their heads, on their backs, on their shoulders, at arm’s length or close to them, for centuries they have carried children, transported wood, water, food, bricks or mountains of cotton. Follow them through this exhibition, which reveals the spectacular burdens they carry. American photographer Lekha Singh pays tribute to the women of the world. Each in their own way, women carry a part of the world. It is time to bring them into the spotlight, and this is what the American photographer does so brilliantly. On the tracks of the fields, the roads of the markets, the paths of the villages or the tumult of the cities, you will follow sportswomen, mothers, doyennes with ankles cracked by the heat of the day or teenagers who put their nascent strengths to the test.   Exhibition until 02 January 2023. Musée de l’Homme : 17 Place du Trocadéro 75016 Paris Open every day except Tuesdays, 01 January, 14 July and 25 December. Opening hours: from 11am to 7pm. Price: 13€. Metro: line 6 Station: Trocadéro