Commercial Zones: Crossing Perspectives on “Non-Places”

The proliferation of commercial zones raises questions. Like everywhere else in France and Europe, Corsicans’ consumption habits are Americanising. City-centre shops are abandoned for the benefit of malls situated on the periphery of the city and built on the model of American shopping centres.

These commercial zones are built upon an almost unique model: periphery hypermarkets, which include gigantic commercial galleries and parking lots spreading over several kilometres. This is encouraged by legislation which makes it almost impossible to regulate such commercial surfaces.

These supermarkets and consumption-oriented spaces distort our landscapes. City-centres are deserted as commercial zones become new living spaces where people spend their weekends, celebrate birthdays and individuals meet. Sometimes they even constitute the nervous centre of new “cities” built to respond to purely economic objectives, at the expense of a reflection on land use planning.

The Coppieters Foundation and Arritti have decided to shed light on these places, which are first and foremost “non-places”. Our idea is to show how such zones transform space and living spaces and influence social relations and lifestyles. Implicitly, the exhibition will also raise the question of the model of society that this mode of consumption implies.

The display, open to the public, will include photographs, models, cartography, as well as sound and visual effects. A night of exchanges in a round-table format will also be held on Tuesday 19 November at 18:00 at the Bastia Museum auditorium.

The roundtable will be open to the public and allow each of those involved in the project to express their points of view and present their works. Moderated by Coppieters Foundation Secretary-General Antonia Luciani, it will feature Mayor of Bastia Pierre Savelli, Local Community Counselor and Author Franck Gintrand, as well as European Free Alliance President and former Minister of Culture for the Araba Region (Basque Country) Lorena López de Lacalle.

Practicalities

When: 19-23 November 2019, with a night of exchanges on Tuesday 19 November at 18:00
Where: Bastia Museum auditorium, Palais des Gouverneurs – Place du Donjon – Citadelle

Press

Media inquiries can be addressed to info@ideasforeurope.eu

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This exhibition is financially supported by the European Parliament. The European Parliament is not liable for the content of the exhibition nor the opinions expressed by the speakers during the night of exchanges of 19 November.

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