Book
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
"This is one of my favorite books, which talks about a family over several generations and that has received a curse. The mix of genres between fantasy and realism is very successful. The book is full of details and full of imagination. It is an awesome intellectual exercise."
Event/live show
FETE DE LA MUSIQUE
"This event happens every year at the end of June, so exams are usually finished at this time. We go to listen music with my friends and every year we discover new places."
Place/architecture
PLACE DE LA REPUBLIQUE
"This place is a place where we meet and hang out a lot with my friends. It is also a place where I have attended a lot of social events during my student years such as demonstrations and gatherings. Those events are still very important to me because it is about causes I support."
Artwork
THE YOUNG MARTYR
"I loved this painting since I was a kid because it looks like she is sleeping. I find it very soothing."
Movies
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
"The 1964 palme d’or winner and a sung-through movie I love and which is available on youtube. Sometimes when I study, I play the movie and listen to it."
Music
RIDIN’ SOLO
"II always listen to this song when I revise my exams and I need motivation. As a last minute worker, I need strong boosting music to motivate myself and keep me awake."
Event/live show
LA PLAGE DE GLAZART
"It’s a music festival: electro, rock and pop. It’s next to the Canal Saint Martin in a huge parc called La Villette."
Event/live show
L’ETRANGE FESTIVAL
"Paris is wonderful for this kind of festival, you have access to some very not known movies that you could not see in a regular cinema during l’étrange festival and also to some conference about cinema with movie directors from all over the world talking about what is making movie today."
Event/live show
BELLASTOCK
"An association of students and architects which organizes an architecture festival every summers for four days. In the program : ephemeral constructions, good music… opened to every body the last day."
Music
PILI PILI SUR UN CROISSANT AU BEURRE
"This album talks about the Parisian life. The question of the culture and some questions about the orientation."
Event/live show
DON PASQUALE
"Amazing Pretty Yende, really innovative staging of this Opera I saw in Bastille."
Event/live show
ROCK-EN-SEINE
"It is the first music festival I went to and I had seen many of my favourite artists. It is also a good occasion to discover many smaller artists."
Event/live show
MK2 QUAI DE SEINE
"More accessible than theater or opera, but as good! And also very close to where I live, this is the movie theater to which I go the most."
Food
ENTRECOTE @LE CLOWN BAR
"Some very tastefull french fusion food, for me it tastes like 21st century Paris."
Food
CAFE MAREVA
"It is a typical place to have brunch with avocado toasts, generous waffles and smoothie bowls with vegeterian options and affordable prices."
Artwork
INGRES’S VIOLIN
"This picture is reproducted a lot in touristic shops, it is very famous but I think it is very pretty and original. I like it even more now that I know the life of the model Kiki de Montparnasse better."
Book
LES CAHIERS D’ESTHER
"This book is about Esther a little French girl, it’s representative of the young generation’s life."
Music
QUE LA FAMILLE
"The songs in this album are known by everyone in my group of friends. We often listen those songs during parties."
Artwork
THE SECRET OF THE GREAT PYRAMID
"A huge photographic masterpiece in the heart of Paris mixing old and contemporary art style."
Book
IN THE CAFE OF LOST YOUTH
"An intimate investigation in Paris, Modiano is one of my favorite writers and almost all his novels take place in Paris and are very descriptive. Very melancholic and very funny at the same time."
Place/architecture
LUXEMBOURG GARDENS
"I would always have lunch on the grass of this beautiful garden in the center of Paris."
Place/architecture
COLLEGE DES BERNARDINS
"Typical medieval architecture. Really interesting because explains the different uses of this beautiful building from a lycée to a firemen house."
Place/architecture
PORTE SAINT-MARTIN
"Its a “big” arch made of stone that is not really beautiful or ugly and that is standing there with people ignoring it or pigeons that shit on it, it’s my life as a student because every morning and every night I pass throught it or walked near by it since it was close to my home and it’s on the way to go to the subway station."
Place/architecture
FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON
"It’s a very particular architecture. And the end construction was during my studies."
Place/architecture
MERCHANT PASSAGES
"The merchant passages seem like secret passages that are very quiet and have cute little shops, away from all the noise and the crowd."
Place/architecture
PALAIS DE TOKYO
"There are always the best exhibitions and they vary a lot !" ... "As a graphic design student i always enjoy going to the Palais de Tokyo wether to see an exhibition or going to the library, i feel it’s one of the centers of parisien culture and it’s probably one of the greatest museums of Paris nowadays."
Place/architecture
FRANCOIS MITTERRAND LIBRARY
"Biggest library in Paris, it’s both the symbol of hundreds of hours studying there, and a goal to reach, as the ultimate aggregation of knowledge." ... "Great place to study your exams."
Place/architecture
CENTRE POMPIDOU
"Very controversial still today. I like to work there so for me it is really the ultimate student place." ... "This is a huge museum with great view upon paris, it also contains a big library, where lots of students come to study."
Place/architecture
CITY OF FASHION AND DESIGN
"This building is totally dedicated to culture. There is a fashion school and almost 4 night-clubs where I go out very often."
Music
445 NUITS
"The world of the artist is very representative of where I study and where I come from. There’s a weird vibe of nostalgia and cloud. The fact that he speaks a very weird urban french is also a plus. Also there’s a music called “Insomnie” (Insomnia), which is pretty much my life as a student 😉"
Book
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET
"It helped me processing all the thought about creation, imagination and much more, its like a bible for any one that wants to create/write, once again all the things that my region brought me were bad so i just took stuff from other places or others centuries."
Book
LA VIE MODERNE
"It is a great comics that began as an Instagram account and that describes perfectly all the everyday situations you can face in Paris and all the clichés you can meet."
Book
EAST OF EDEN
"As my grandmother told me while younger, “excellence is made of details, but excellence is everything but a detail”. The core of this book is about one simple word changing over the time in the Bible, leading to massive drift in society approach to rights and duty. I’ve always tried to keep in mind that one word can change one’s life."
Artwork
WHEAT FIELD WITH CYPRESSES
"I saw this painting from Van Gogh at the Courtault exhibition in the Foundation Vuitton."
Artwork
OUAIJVOISOUAI
"Vincent Castant is a French multimedia artist who lives in Paris. He is doing comics and ironic videos about his daily life."
Artwork
THE SCREAM
"This how i felt inside and how i feel people around me in Paris are feeling. This city and their people are dying from the inside or feel bad but they dont make any sound, like dying in silence."
Artwork
BOULEVARD PARIS 13
"When we walk in the streets or when we take public transportation, it is always a pleasant surprise to discover new pieces of art. And this is what happened all along the metro 6 in the 13th district of Paris where street artists redecorated many buildings that are visible when you take the metro. There are also many street artworks in the streets of the 13th."
Book
CITY OF NIGHT
"After an exhibition of Hockney at Beaubourg where the book was quoted as one of the artist’s inspirations, this book was a heart stroke."
Artwork
CY TWOMBLY
"I discovered Twombly during an exhibition in Beaubourg – an important cultural center in Paris."
Movies
FALLEN ANGELS
"I’ve seen in my first year of study of cinema randomly because i saw a song of it in youtube, then i understood all what i will learn in school from cinema is pure bullshit and that you don’t need a school of cinema to make movies."
Movies
THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT
"This movie is everything in my student life, like a bible I always referred to."
Movies
GLADIATOR
"Within the french educational system, the main road to leading schools is called “preparation classes”. Going through this might be long and painfull. But if you keep going on, and even fight after, you might in the end up in a very good school. Then, keeping in mind French “meritocratic” system and elitism, only those few will be able to hear the acclamations."
Movies
LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR
"A movie that takes place in Paris and mostly in the street, that I love. Very light and very very serious at the same time."
Movies
MEKTOUB MY LOVE
"The film takes place in south of France but the lifestyle of the characters is the same as young parisians’ lifestyle."
Music
MUTANT ROBOTICS
"I discovered this music from Maceo Plex after a techno party at Badaboum, a place I really like in Paris and I listen to it often while running or cylcing."
Music
PETER AND THE WOLF
"Its a “child” fairy tale somehow with characters represented by music, I used and still use this 30min “song” to help me relax or to think to something else, also I had to take subway for 30min to go to school so it fits perfectly the duration and make me escape the routine before getting into class."
Music
BLADE RUNNER BLUES
"This is from masterly music compositor Vangelis for the movie Blade Runner (Ridley Scott), it’s not from France at all but i used to look at this movie a lot when I was a kid and know I’m often listening to this soundtrack when working. For me this song nourishes my creativity."
Music
YOU MAKE ME FEEL (MIGHTY REAL)
"I love to go out to disco, house or techno parties and I feel this song represent the idea of partying like we do in many places in Paris."
Music
YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
"The overall tone of the music is super sweet, but some lyrics might be bitter. Kind of an invitation to work hard enough to get something great in the end."
Food
KOBE BUFFET
"An all you can eat restaurant close to where I live, with students and plenty of yakitori!"
Music
JOHNNY AND MARY
"A peacefull, relax, symphonical music that gives a nostalgic but pretty aspect to everything that surrounds me when I walk around."
Music
DEIXA A GIRA GIRAR
"This music represents my desire to go elsewhere, I would listen to it before going to Brazil."
Event/live show
WE LOVE GREEN
"It’s a famous music festival in Paris." ... "It is in my neighbourhood and i went with all my friends from school. Also one of my friend which is studying environment showed her first short moovie there."
Book
TEKKONKINKREET
"Japanese manga. It talks about a Big City, hard and not fair and as i live in Ile-de-France maybe it touches me in some way."
Book
FEROCIOUS KISS
"The book Im reading at the moment. I love the italian author because he is a political activist and he has strong links with the movie industry."
Food
PASTA CARBONARA
"This is fast and cheap, every French (and probably Italian) student knows it."