Diane Dufour, Director of Le Bal
Le Bal is a “small” and recent institution, born out of the crisis, in a neighborhood in Paris where there are few cultural institutions. It is housed in a former ballroom that became, after the war, the largest Paris Mutuel Urbain betting office in the country. The project, undertaken with Raymond Depardon in 2008, is conceived as a flexible place defining a new frontier. Devoted to the image in all its forms—photography, video, cinema—Le Bal asks: What is the image? What does it tell us about ourselves and the world? How does it change us? By placing itself between a purely documentary approach and strictly visual styles. It is a place of production, without a collection, where all projects, from organizing exhibitions to co-publishing books developed on site, require the involvement of patrons, who provide a third of Le Bal’s funding.
Patronage has also allowed for the development of La Fabrique du Regard, led by Christine Vidal, which aims, through five programs held during and after school hours, to teach young people how to engage with the world and their era through the understanding of images. Ten thousand students have already participated from five academies across Paris.
Le Bal is essentially a platform that gets its patrons “on board” with projects that are “common concerns.”
