2020 edition, 2021 edition, Permanent art work
Nantes, Gare SNCF
Nantes ici Nantes
Mrzyk & Moriceau

Petra Mrzyk and Jean-François Moriceau practise creativity the way some might practise a professional sport : as a team, and intensively. These bodybuilders of the imagination turn popular imagery into high art with little more than their expert use of India ink, which they shape into a sensual, tactile world where fantasies become obsessions.

Their drawings come alive in every form imaginable: a cadavre exquis app for iPhones, tramway tickets, stickers, tattoos, children’s books, music videos (for Justice, The Avalanches, Sébastien Tellier…) film credits, and ads. 

Using the colourful, pop vocabulary that runs throughout their work, Mrzyk & Moriceau have created Nantes ici Nantes: a film resembling a journey, a poetic odyssey, and a cinematic daydream… In Nantes ici Nantes, a character with infinite metamorphic possibilities explores the city by every possible means, discovering wild, fanciful architectures and mutant anatomies, along with Nantes’ tangible and intangible heritage. So forget your trite postcard images! Here, emblems of culture and tourism become excuses for every visual experiment.

This work was temporarily on display last summer at the Little Atlantique Brewery, and has since found its rightful home on a large screen in the mezzanine of the city’s new train station where it will become a permanent fixture.

The Cœur de Gare project includes a new overhead passage designed by Rudy Ricciotti. It offers generous windows that open out the city, connects the North and South stations – both of which have also been renovated – and allows access to the different platforms.

With its impressive volume – 160 m (525 ft.) long and 25 m (82 ft.) wide – it rises 13 m (43 ft.) above the site, and the entirely glass façades offer multiple views of the city.

Panoramic view of the city from the mezzanine. 

Maintenance

The station screen will be undergoing maintenance from Tuesday 6 December to Thursday 8 December 2022.