Ode to the Metro
(Ongoing)
What makes Paris accessible to all, is visited by most tourists, used by every Parisian, a symbol of life in Paris, is practical yet always complained about?
The Metro of course!
It is the common thread that ties together all my experiences, both good and bad, in this city.
Becoming a true Parisian, to me, means knowing the ins and outs of the metro. Having grown up in Toulouse where your metro options are line A or line B, the Paris metro long felt like an incomprehensible, dirty, and stressful place. Little by little, I am learning its secrets.
Becoming Parisian means avoiding the nightmarish Châtelet station at all costs; it’s thinking that more than 4 minutes wait for the next metro is a long time (how spoiled we are!); it’s never forgetting my headphones to avoid talking to any one (in fact it’s knowing that the only people who speak to strangers are tourists and crazy people); and it’s always getting irritated by the people who can’t seem to wait for passengers to get off the metro before they shove their way in. But getting to know the metro also means knowing that on line 6 I get to see murals by my favorite street artists and the Eiffel Tower further along my commute. It means learning there really is a medieval castle at the Château de Vincennes stop, that at Hôtel de Ville there’s a new photography exhibition every few months, and that, despite its disappearance on the surface, within the Bastille station there are still traces of the old fortress.
This series is my ode to the Paris metro and all the experiences it enables, albeit not always welcome ones. Each image is a reference to an anecdote or observation but you may choose to read them through your own experiences on the fabled Métropolitain.
