Mika brings Color back to the Streets of Paris

How sad life feels without concerts, theater, cinema and museums! Cultural life in France has been on hold since October and Parisians have been gazing up at the same blank billboards and empty advertising spaces that once promoted the cultural happenings of the city.

To enliven the city again, the singer-songwriter Mika had the idea to give color back to Paris by repurposing these advertising spaces with original and previously unreleased artistic posters. Accompanied by his sister Paloma, Mika sought out artists and illustrators and with the insight of Olivier Gabet, Director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 9 artists were commissioned and given carte blanche to design works that will brighten up the city.

Mika led the charge of this artistic project in record time and also took part as an artist himself, creating an original work with his sister, Yasmine Penniman.

The artists chosen include Aurélia Durand, Laurindo Feliciano, Ugo Gattoni, Annick Kamgang, Marie Mohanna, Lamia Ziade, Alexandre Benjamin Navet, Lamarche-Ovize and Rosa Maria Unda Souki, all of whom reconnected with the long tradition of artistic posters of la Belle Époque, following in the footsteps of Toulouse-Lautrec or Alphonse Mucha.

Thanks to the generosity of the Ville de Paris and JCDecaux, who embraced Mika’s idea, these posters will appear on flagpoles and JCDecaux advertising columns at 2,000 locations all across Paris, transforming the city into an open-air gallery during all the month of March.