The 25th edition of the Nuit Blanche looks set to be, once again, fantastic... If you haven’t yet experienced this much-loved Parisian arts event, here’s what you need to know. Nuit Blanche is a celebration of contemporary art: for one night, hundreds of artistic happenings unfold across the city and its surrounding towns. Performances, exhibitions, happenings, concerts, activities — these free events put contemporary creation in the spotlight.
To mark the occasion, several Parisian museums are also opening their doors all night, and free of charge. This notably includes the Shoah Memorial, which will welcome us from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 6, 2026, to showcase its collections and cultural updates.
The Memorial was inaugurated in 2005 in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The mission of this cultural institution is to raise public awareness of the Holocaust (or Shoah), the tragic period in French history during the Second World War.
Most people know this museum and place of remembrance for the"Wall of Names", where the names of all known victims of the Holocaust are listed. The institution regularly organizes exhibitions and meetings to perpetuate the duty of remembrance of this genocide, which hit the French particularly hard.
For this Nuit Blanche, the Memorial continues its mission, while introducing us to some fascinating contemporary artists. Here's the program for the evening.
Painting, Drawing, Performance, Reading, Exhibition
The proposals by artists Emmanuel Régent and Tami Notsani explore the many ways contemporary art can engage with memory and archive, while also tapping into the symbolism of objects—historical or allegorical.
Le Dernier Soleil
Emmanuel Régent's project, specially conceived for the Mémorial de la Shoah, presents new works that fuse the artist's practice with aesthetics that are at once conceptual, poetic, and allegorical, alongside elements tied to memory of the Shoah and to other genocides studied by the Memorial. The exhibition probes the symbolic thickness of objects, as well as the link between the ephemeral and the eternal, the wounds of history and hope, in a way that is increasingly evocative rather than didactic, leaving room for a multiplicity of interpretations. At the heart of a constellation of works, ten watercolors created "on site" by the artist in Rivesaltes, Drancy, or Auschwitz, open onto the eternity of a sunset.
La Veille
Tami Notsani's project sits at the crossroads of her current practice, the idea of commemorating in an original and contemporary way the 50th anniversary of the Mémorial de la Shoah as a place of archives, and a reminder to the public of the importance of the archive, its collection, its analysis, and the preservation of memory. On the Memorial's forecourt, the event will unfold as a performance in which audience participation is invited throughout the evening. In a reception-style setup reminiscent of a front desk, Tami Notsani and her assistants will greet visitors at a desk, inviting them to choose archival images and describe them, in their own words, with cultural and symbolic interpretations as varied as the perspectives that gaze upon them, in one minute, the image before them (a description that will be recorded and later used for a restitution installation).
Rendezvous at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Mémorial de la Shoah for the launch of the evening, in the presence of the artists and the curator
Curators: Marie DEPARIS-YAFIL
On the forecourt, La Veille—a participatory performance specifically designed for the Memorial and choreographed by Tami Notsani—focuses on the interpretive dimension of archival imagery. In a reception-desk-style setup, Tami Notsani and her assistants will greet visitors, invite them to pick an image, and describe, with their own words and their diverse cultural and symbolic interpretations as varied as their perspectives, what they are looking at.
The culmination of this performance will take the form of an installation exhibited in the crypt during Heritage Days, on September 19 and 20, 2026.
A free evening in a fascinating museum: go for it!
Dates and Opening Time
On June 6, 2026
Location
Shoah Memorial
17 rue geoffroy l´ asnier
75004 Paris 4
Prices
Free
Official website
billetterie.memorialdelashoah.org
