Following the festival, a small group of five artists, including myself, decided to extend the adventure. We made the bold decision to squat this immense place, fascinated by the potential it offered to experiment with another way of creating and living. Very quickly, others joined us, forming a heterogeneous community where artistic disciplines and horizons mingled.
After a year of informal occupation, we negotiated a renewable temporary occupation agreement, thanks to the support of Pascale Bonniel-Chalier, Lyon's deputy for culture at the time. A visionary, this ecologist councillor recognised the value of this atypical project and enabled us to maintain our presence for eight exceptional years, until a timely fire, followed by eviction, put an abrupt end to the experiment. A thriving wasteland
Over the past eight years, the RVI wasteland has been transformed into a veritable cultural, artistic and activist epicentre. In this 39,000 m² space, dozens of associations, collectives and artists experimented with their practices in almost total autonomy. It was a hive of activity, where sometimes stormy, often epic meetings gave rise to joint initiatives. Despite the individualism inherent in many artists, we learned to look for the collective interest, to invent together new ways of collaborating and coexisting.
This was not just a creative space, but also a social laboratory. We explored the challenges and triumphs of living together outside the usual institutional frameworks. A powerful symbol Squatting in a former factory, a symbol of declining industrial capitalism, and transforming it into a place for alternative living and creativity, had a highly symbolic dimension. Every day we spent in this space was an affirmation of our ability to reinvent the use of abandoned places, to turn them into zones of temporary autonomy where utopia could become tangible. The End of an Era
Today, the RVI wasteland has been rehabilitated. It now houses a secondary school and other facilities whose development I have not followed. Although the page of this experience has been turned, its memory lives on, as a testimony to what it is possible to build on the fringes of the dominant models. The RVI wasteland-wonderland was not just a place, it was a unique space-time, a parenthesis where creation, commitment and freedom coexisted. Those years marked my life and, I hope, left a lasting imprint on Lyon's cultural landscape.