Richelieu, the alarm clock! - COMPLETE

From the new Vivienne garden to the Tubeuf courtyard, through the Ovale room and the Labrouste room (INHA), discover the larger and smaller spaces of the Richelieu site. Let yourself be surprised by an artistic program imagined by the director Anne-Laure Liégeois, with more than fifty artists, dancers, singers, musicians, circassians, actors, puppeteers, authors, that you will meet on your journey. When visiting the museum, don’t miss the real-fake guardians who will say texts by Marie Nimier and Thierry Illiouz. Discover the libraries of the world, photographer Fatoumata Diabaté, her street studio and her photos of agents. Not to mention surprise and surprising guided tours.

Along the way: the band of artists
From the new Vivienne garden to the Tubeuf courtyard, in the colours of the BnF agents portrayed by photographer Fatoumata Diabaté and writer Arno Bertina, discover the larger and smaller spaces of the Richelieu site. Let yourself be surprised by more than fifty artists, dancers, singers, musicians, circassians, actors, puppeteers, authors, that you will come across on your journey. When visiting the museum, don’t miss the real-fake guardians who will say texts by Marie Nimier and Thierry Illiouz.
In the Letters Room: the World Library
Because all the world’s libraries cooperate to make cultural heritage accessible to as many people as possible, the BnF asked its partners to demonstrate this common commitment. More than thirty international libraries responded to the call and sent their response to Anne-Laure Liégeois' "game book". A video document gathers all the readings filmed in each institution.
Walter Benjamin, Confucius, Judith Wright, James Joyce, Sei Shonagon, and Rosa Parks are translated live by actors.
With the support of Paris Lumières University
In the Labrouste hall: the photo studio
Malian photographer Fatoumata Diabaté, an internationally renowned portrait painter, set up her photo studio in the Labrouste hall, in the style of African street photographers of the 1960s. You can have your portrait drawn in black and white. A moment of singular dialogue between the subject and the photographer, whose memory you can keep on a print.
Throughout the Richelieu site: the Potomaks
Seven routes with comedians-guides, a bit crazy, to discover with humor some corners and nooks of the Richelieu site.
Under their guidance, you can cross the spaces of the departments of Music, Prints and Photography, Maps and Plans, Manuscripts, Performing Arts, Coins, Medals and Antiques. The opportunity to enter the renovated reading rooms, sneak behind the scenes and listen to anecdotes, stories and other readings on the history of collections and departments.
Visit the Vivienne Garden
Some of these routes will cross the glass gallery in which Nicolas Frize, composer of contemporary music, offers an original sound work inspired by a cylinder archive preserved in the Sound, Video, Multimedia department: Intervention by Dr. Charcot on his first expedition to Greenland ».
With the patronage of the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation – Institut de France (for the artistic intervention of the glass gallery)
In the Tubeuf courtyard: the exhibition The soul of the BnF
The BnF commissioned the photographer Fatoumata Diabaté to take a series of fifteen photographs of the library’s agents in symbolic locations. These portraits embody some of the BnF’s key missions, businesses and projects: exhibitions, heritage restoration sites, the future Amiens conservation centre, etc.
These photographs, which will enter the collections of the Department of Prints and Photography, are exhibited in the Tubeuf courtyard. They are accompanied by texts by the writer Arno Bertina, who was inspired by them.
More information on bnf.fr
How to get here: free admission – 15-minute time slot reservation required via BnF box office > https://bnf.tickeasy.com/en-FR/produit?familles=2218857204330400005
Access via the Vivienne Garden, 5 rue Vivienne – 75002 PARIS