The Summer Journey: June 28th - August 31st 2025

The theme of Le Voyage à Nantes’ 2025 summer season is L’Étrangeté (i.e., “the Uncanny”), organized by Jean Blaise and different project leaders. Jean, who founded LVAN, has offered us his understanding of the city, almost in the form of a message – one that is inseparable from both its history and its contemporary identity.

Indeed, a city orchestrates a heterogeneous cacophony of elements, leading the happy flâneur down unexpected paths – provided the urban dweller pays attention. Its emblem is the Carnival: a moment when hierarchies and codes are uncannily inverted behind the wearer’s mask. And works of art, whether they stand prominently in squares or hide in remote corners, are also quick to orchestrate these improbable encounters, which are the source of strangeness – whether unsettling or otherwise. In other words, those moments when you are no longer quite certain of what you see or understand: is this a parrot or a man, a woman or a ship, an army or a marching farce, a monument or a tableau vivant? Hybridization, displacement, storytelling… these are just some of the means artists use to help us grasp the true mystery of the city.

Sophie Lévy, General Director of Le Voyage à Nantes