Paris is perhaps the most postcard-friendly city in the world. Bright lights, beautiful monuments, and a rich narrative of love, luxury and prosperity. The picturesque quality of Paris, however, quickly fades away as one moves further away from the physical center of the city and into the outer arrondissements and banlieues. Here is where a majority of Parisians live-- far from the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The Paris of these denizens is not concerned with art, architecture and café society, but rather entrenched in racism, unemployment, and poverty. The Paris which riots and writhes has been long suppressed by the powers-that-be in France, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the pretty, pristine photographs on the cartes postales that tourists send back home. Here, I wanted to place what is in many ways a more authentic Paris on the glossy front of the postcard.
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