INTERVIEW. "I wanted to create, for one evening, the opportunity to get together"explains Barbara Butch, artist and artistic director of Nuit blanche 2026

A new edition rich in dance and love. This is the promise of artist and DJ Barbara Butch, artistic director of the 25th edition of Nuit blanche à Paris, which will take place on Saturday June 6. Appointed in October 2025 by the former mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, the turntable player decided to put this edition under the sign of love. On the program: dance, contemporary art and emotions.

Franceinfo Culture: More than a year of work will take shape on Saturday June 6 and more than a hundred projects will be born in one night. How is your sleep?
Barbara Butch : It’s okay, I still sleep quite well. Obviously, I’m a little stressed as the evening approaches, but I’m already thinking about what’s next. I became attached to the people I worked with. I’m more used to working alone because of my job, so working in a team with great people taught me a lot about myself and others.

Why did you choose love as a common thread?
I believe we deeply need love, where society only brings us anger and drama. I wanted to create, for one evening, the opportunity to meet and come together around the values ​​of sharing, meeting and reaching out to others.

In your opinion, we need love more at the moment?
I think there is more and more loneliness and people are more and more isolated. There is a need for connection, beyond love. Today, we have the impression that everything brings us together because there are social networks and we think of creating bonds with strangers. On the contrary, it creates a lot of loneliness and despair for some.

Do you see this White Night as a solution to the current era?
Not as a solution but perhaps just a hope to offer something else. We can try to be together to change the world or create a slightly better society. There are moments when we are all linked like supporters of football matches which lead to popular jubilation. Everyone loves each other and shares the same joy. That’s kind of what I want to do this evening.

This year marks the 25th edition of Nuit blanche. How did you become part of the lineage of other editions?
I tried to do what I wanted to do. I didn’t think about how it was going to be different from other years but about how people will experience it and who this sleepless night is for. It is for everyone, it is not for a microcosm of Parisian artist or student of Fine Arts. You don’t necessarily need to have completed five years of arts studies. I haven’t done any myself. I imagined something where people don’t feel too small in front of the works.

The artistic terrain here is on the scale of a city. How do you build a celebration of this dimension?
It is a collective work with the Town Hall, the City’s cultural affairs department and Arter which produces the event. It is also participatory work on the part of Parisians on certain projects such as that of Marie-Luce Nadal and her local messaging which collects people’s messages then broadcast in the Saint-Laurent church. I tried to imagine Paris going beyond Paris. There are a lot of Parisians who are not Parisians with quite a few people who have gone to the capital to look for work, freedom, find family, build a family, do their studies. This White Night is in part a tribute to these people. There are around a hundred institutions involved in the project but also all of Greater Paris. Around thirty municipalities are participating, in addition to Le Havre which is part of the Greater Paris metropolis. It will create a kind of vibrational love song that will be magical, I hope.

How did you think about the routes and events?
These are routes that can be done very easily on foot, quite accessible. There are several points that are not far apart. We don’t have to pull an all-nighter but we can do so depending on the neighborhood. In Paris, everything can work in a small district whose central point will be the Town Hall.

How did you choose the artists?
Some came to me as evidence. For others, it was discussions with my team. I presented a list of artists I wanted to collaborate with. We worked with a precise budget envelope. I arrived with lots of ideas saying “I would like to do this, place that, etc..” In reality, there are plenty of limits. It’s something I’ve learned to deal with.

What is one of the projects that sums up your vision of Nuit blanche?
Obviously that of Mr. and Mr., these two boys who cross France by boat [ils donnent rendez-vous, cela ne s’invente pas, promenade Éric-Tabarly, dans le 19e arrondissement parisien]who travel 16 km a day when they could get on the train in three hours but who meet people on the way who don’t know about the All-Nighter. There is an exchange between them and between all of France. Everything that happens on their routes is all the spirit that I expect for this All-Nighter. The transcripts of the meetings they have are overwhelming. It’s a bit of my story too. I left for the South before returning to find work. I really have the idea that Nuit blanche becomes a project not for one day but for weeks, like their trip.

What do you hope people feel after tonight?
They already feel something, whether it is a positive or negative emotion. The idea is to experience and share an emotion. It doesn’t matter whether we know anything about contemporary art or not, I would like us to feel something strong and above all to look at our neighbor. It’s important to try to create an event that brings people together despite their differences or their backgrounds. We can very well spend an evening with people with whom we don’t necessarily agree, experience things together and that’s what makes society.