In barely two hours, Sunday morning, a dozen citizens and street artists managed to bombard the Midas wasteland of Eurotéléport entirely with gold, which has become a veritable dump. Why paint it gold? For the nod to the myth of Midas, to highlight the abandonment of this wasteland but also because “those who live or work here deserve to have things that shine“.
“Did you see how clean it is?“You just have to stay a few minutes near the Midas wasteland to hear these kinds of sentences coming from Roubaisiens who pass here every day. Abandoned in 2017, the old garage had nevertheless been quickly bought by an investor from the Paris region according to the Voice of the North.
But in the end, nothing has happened since. The site has become a wasteland, has been squatted and rubbish has started to pile up. A beautiful wart on the ultra-busy Place de la Liberté, a stone’s throw from the MacArthurGlen center and adjoining the former Banque de France.
Although the city provides at the Voice of the North having initiated numerous proceedings against the owner, it took formal notice last May for him to finally send a team on site to clean up the site at the beginning of June.
Midas et son or
But if he hadn’t, citizens were about to do so. The associative and artistic fabric of Roubaix activated itself at the beginning of May to symbolically put the spotlight back on the wasteland. “We heard about the Banksy exhibition that was going to happen at the former Banque de France, right next doorexplains a street artist who lives nearby. We thought it was time to do something and we launched this Midas collective.”
Everyone activates their network and while an association proposes to clean up the wasteland (it did not know at the time that it would be done a few days before), other citizens find an offer of accommodation for the people who squatted the place (but they refused). Finally, local artists landed for a commando mission on Sunday morning with sixty golden bombs to highlight this wasteland that seems forgotten. Taking advantage of the installation of grids on the wasteland, they operated the metamorphosis of the site into a gold ingot in barely two hours.
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“We don’t clean for the guests of the expo next doorsays one of street artists. We do it for Roubaisiens who are there every day, because this symbol of rubbish should also shine.” “It is also a demonstration that we can do a lot with little.“, adds another member of the collective. The final objective is also obviously to make communities and owners move on the future of the site.
Now that no one can pass through Euréotéléport without seeing the golden reflections of the wasteland, the collective hands over to those who would like to continue their action “en reclaiming this wasteland“. At the beginning of the month, the town hall had indicated at The Voice of the North takeover negotiations were again underway. But that if the latter did not succeed, an expropriation procedure could be launched. What does not happen whatever happens in a few weeks.
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