City/Cité : Oakland x Saint Denis – How Culture Makes the City

The Oakland/Saint-Denis Project included Juliette Donadieu, Cultural Attaché and Director of Villa San Francisco; Simón Adinia Hanukai, Theatermaker and Co-Artistic Director of Kaimera Productions; Lori Fogarty, Director of the Oakland Museum of California; and Juliette Bompoint, Cultural Producer and Director of Mains d’Oeuvres. 

Together with Malvika Jolly from the Rail, they explored the rich lessons offered by our diverse cities, reimagining the pivotal role cultural stakeholders play in urban development and emphasizing the necessity of collective city-building efforts. 

This dialogue built upon a robust cross-cultural exchange involving twenty artists, urban planners, entrepreneurs, cultural producers, and researchers from Oakland, CA and Saint-Denis, France. Together, they collaborated to address and envision the future of our cities. The session concluded with a poetry reading by Farid Matuk, capturing the essence of our collective journey toward fostering a more vibrant urban landscape.