Magazine

Lafayette is celebrated as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” yet his legacy reveals enduring tensions between French and American democracy. Vincent Bouat-Ferlier, director of the Chambrun Foundation, which works to preserve Lafayette’s legacy, examines how Lafayette’s fight for freedom, his defense of civil liberties, and his opposition to slavery were understood in his own time in both countries, and how those contrasting receptions reflect productive differences in the two nations’ political ideals.

The French and American revolutions drew on Enlightenment ideals, yet they produced divergent visions of liberty. Revisiting Montesquieu’s lasting influence—and Rousseau’s challenge to it—Hugo Toudic explores how the two republics, one built on representation and the other on popular sovereignty, continue to confront the difficult work of democracy.

First published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America became an instant classic in the U.S.—but in his native France, the author was met with suspicion. Branded “Tocqueville the American,” he wrote a bestselling book that was praised and doubted in equal measure. Historian Françoise Mélonio, whose new biography Tocqueville was published in France in September 2025, argues that his vision of democracy, rooted in civic participation and shared responsibility, remains vital today for both the U.S. and France.

Both France and the United States were born in revolutions that overthrew kings, yet neither has ever stopped searching for a leader to embody the nation. From Washington and Napoleon to de Gaulle and Trump, a look at how the two countries have wrestled with the paradox of a president who must lead—and embody—the nation.

Two centuries after a revolution turned royal collections into public treasure, museums still upend expectations—placing art from across time and geography in conversation and reimagining their missions for the digital age. As Glenn Lowry steps down after a transformative tenure at New York’s MoMA, he and Louvre director Laurence des Cars reflect on the shared history that continues to link French and American museums.

French art once set the pace for the world. Then, after World War II, New York seized the avant-garde, building a powerful alliance of critics, collectors, and museums that pushed France to the margins. Nathalie Obadia explains how American soft power reshaped the global art scene, why French artists struggled for recognition in the United States, and why a new generation is finally gaining ground.

In 1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that America had “listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe” and called for an intellectual declaration of independence. Almost two centuries later Americans are divided over (among other things) French theory. Some blame the American obsession with theory for the country’s intellectual confusion, but, as François Cusset argues, theory has also helped the U.S. achieve a new kind of global influence.

Ask a French filmmaker about their influences and you are likely to hear American names like Tarantino, Scorsese, or Spielberg. Ask an American filmmaker and the French New Wave often comes first. Rebecca Leffler reports on the symbiotic relationship between French and American cinema at a moment when more American directors are making movies in France and French actors and filmmakers are gaining new visibility and success in the U.S.

Louis-Paul Caron works at the intersection of climate and technology, using 3D animation, oil painting, and AI to present immersive narratives that blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. At the invitation of STATES, Caron created a series of images to mark 250 years of Franco-American exchange and imagination. Caron will be an Arts in the Age of AI resident at Villa Albertine in 2026.

“Art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risk,” wrote Mark Rothko. In the painter’s spirit, creativity is a leap into discovery—a deliberate step beyond the familiar.

Wanjiru Kamuyu, born in Kenya to a Kenyan father and an African American mother, moved to the United States at sixteen and has lived in Paris since 2007. As part of the Albertine Dance Season 2023, she undertook a residency exploring the body as a site of liberation. While in the U.S., she gathered recordings of people and their stories, focusing especially on the memories of African Americans. This research led to Fragmented Shadows, a performance tracing the ties between memory, movement, and emancipation. The piece toured the U.S. in fall 2025.

Born on the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia to Somali parents, gallerist Mariane Ibrahim grew up between France and Somalia and moved to the U.S. in 2010. She founded M.I.A. Gallery in Seattle two years later with a program centered on artists of the African diaspora. In 2019 she relocated to Chicago and opened the Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, which now has outposts in Paris and Mexico City.

Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet spent the summer of 2024 in New York City researching the history of French immigration to the United States. During his residency, he also developed his second book as an author-illustrator, De l’autre côté de la pluie (On the Other Side of the Rain).

When composer Sivan Eldar met singer Ganavya Doraiswamy and novelist Lauren Groff in 2021, a new kind of opera began to take shape. Inspired by an ancient Buddhist tale and by Doraiswamy’s South Indian musical heritage, The Nine Jewelled Deer evolved into a transatlantic collaboration involving director Peter Sellars, painter Julie Mehretu, and others.

Atlanta-based writer and artist Hannah S. Palmer came to Marseilles in April 2023 as part of Villa Albertine’s City/Cité program and Terres Communes, an event co-produced by the Guide Bureau of GR2013 and the Cité de l’Agriculture, with Friche la belle de Mai. A leading Atlanta voice in ecology and environmental justice, she has developed numerous projects on the issue of water and urban rivers. It was also on the subject of water that she wrote on her return from Marseille.

In this text, science fiction author Alain Damasio reveals the hidden face of the city of San Francisco. Inspired by the investigation he carried out during his residency at the Villa Albertine, this story reveals the perverse effects of modernity and capitalism on human beings. 

Multi-disciplinary artist NSDOS has developed a unique and unconventional approach to music. Using a range of elements, each as original as the next, he breaks codes and tears down expectations by inviting the audience to explore the infinite possibilities of objects, technological tools, sounds and bodily movements. He recently brought his practice to New Orleans, and was filmed by Edouard Lemiale.

100,000 artifacts discovered in a few square feet of space. This is the extraordinary result of archaeological excavations conducted on the southwest coast of Alaska for the past 13 years, at Nunalleq, on the Bering Sea. Nunalleq has become a reference point when it comes to telling the story of the Yup’ik past, which has lived there for centuries. It is also the history of this resilient people in the face of climatic catastrophes that is being written before our eyes, and that is at the center of a five-year residency undertaken by French archeologist Claire Houmard with Villa Albertine.

For the 2024 Night of Ideas, Na’Taki Osborne Jelks vividly portrays Atlanta’s contrasting nature. Despite its rich history of Civil Rights activism, Atlanta still grapples with severe racial and environmental inequalities. An environmental scientist, Jelks emphasizes the importance of community activism and organizations in dismantling systemic oppression and creating a more healthy and equitable environment for everyone.

This year’s Night of Ideas is an invitation to meditate on the twilight of cities. Sébastien Marot—who is participating in the Atlanta, Miami and Durham editions—takes this opportunity to lay the hypothesis of an urban exodus as a response to the environmental crisis. Yet this evolution seems both inevitable and impossible, it is caught in a form of cognitive dissonance. There are two ways out: be a magician or a prophet.

“Four Daughters” follows the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters, exploring family dynamics and the radicalization of the two eldest in a unique blend of documentary and fiction. The director, Kaouther Ben Hania, stopped by Villa Albertine where she was a resident in 2022 and shared insights ahead of the film’s nomination for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.

Tiana Webb Evans and Lydia Amarouche will both be present at the Jersey City Night of Ideas, but not in the same conversation, even though they have much in common. Villa Albertine Magazine, therefore, organized a meeting ahead of the event. Their fascinating conversation tackled urban issues and inclusivity, emphasizing literature, community involvement, and the arts as pivotal in confronting representation and urban challenges, highlighting their respective projects—Yard Concept and Shed Publishing.

French cinema is currently undergoing a transformation, thanks to a new generation of female filmmakers who are challenging traditional norms and redefining narratives. In this article, film journalist Rebecca Leffler delves into the ways in which these women are creating a diverse cinematic landscape that promotes intellectual engagement with the multifaceted stories and perspectives of modern women.

In this article, Eve George, an accomplished glass blower and designer, shares her enriching journey during her residency in New York City. Co-founder of Atelier George, Eve combines working with glass, vibrant urban experiences and varied culinary explorations. From her workshop in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or to the bustling streets of New York, food culture deeply impacted her artistic vision, ending in glass creations showcasing her evolving journey as an artist in a melting pot of cultures and creativity.

Villa Albertine resident Léa Hirschfeld is the creator of the podcast Décalés, which highlights the different dimensions of disability – intellectual, physical and mental – and recounts both the lived experience of disability and the experiences of loved ones. During her residency, Léa traveled throughout the United States, discovering how disability is experienced across the country and sharing the stories she discovered along the way.

States is Villa Albertine’s multidimensional platform for artists and thinkers from around the world to grapple with today’s biggest questions. Through an online and print magazine, and now a podcast, States delves into the intricacies of the American cultural landscape while exploring diverse states of contemporary thought and creation.

Is the notion of Cultural Rights, which appeared nearly 80 years ago, still relevant in the age of the Internet? In this article, based on their intervention at the Night of Ideas in Atlanta, Marie Picard and Emmanuel Vergès place themselves at the intersection of cultural rights and digital cultures to envision a new cultural framework that is inclusive, open and sustainable. The stakes are high; it is nothing less than the possibility of democracy.

Activist and researcher Terence Lester investigates the roots of hostile architecture and its impact on homelessness and discrimination. Drawing from personal experiences of racism in the Jim Crow south, Lester explores the intersection of race, class, and homelessness. As hostile architecture further marginalizes those without an address, this article illuminates the power of belonging, re-imaging homelessness through the Lens of Martin Luther Kings’s b “Beloved Community”, and urging readers to confront systemic barriers for a more inclusive and just society.

At the Night of Ideas event at Harvard University, Jean Arnaud, a co-founder of a startup focused on providing AI-enabled immersive learning environments, discussed the potential of combining artificial intelligence and immersive technologies in education. Arnaud explored how these technologies could revolutionize the way we approach learning, with the use of avatars combined with AI yielding exceptional benefits for students, including promoting personal development and inclusion. However, he also shows the importance of recognizing the limits of these thechnologies, which should be used as a tool to amplify human intelligence and ideas, not to control them.

The term resilience, originally defined as the ability of a material to bounce back, has evolved through its use by various disciplines, including ecology and economics. Yet measuring a city’s resilience remains elusive. In this article, echoing her intervention at the Night of Ideas in Monterrey, architect Ophélia Mantz proposes to consider the notion of civitas and adaptation as a more precise term that reflects the progressive change of the urban system in response to crises. The concepts of ecosophy and temporal ecology are also mobilized in the quest to modify our lifestyles, to build a convivial society based on well-being and quality of life.

One can be a historian of the United States, a specialist in Black history and theories of Afrodiasporic descent, and yet be struck by the specificity of Atlanta. This was Maboula Soumahoro’s experience during her residency, and she concluded that theoretical knowledge—such as the conditions of emergence of a figure like Martin Luther King or of Hip Hop culture—does not replace physical experience in understanding how a Southern city became a major home for the Black-African diaspora.