The municipal government of Paris has created an artist’s workspace out of a former funeral factory located at 104 Rue d’Aubervilliers or, as it is know, Le 104. Artists who qualify get a workspace and can also apply for a €1500 per month stipend. In exchange, they must interact with the curious public who come to see their working environment. Bloomberg‘s Farah Nayeri has the story:

Le 104 is all about the creative process, not the final work. “Gorgeous building. Where’s all the art?” asks Philip Giuntini, a Virginia-based software executive vacationing in Paris, who read about Le 104 in a magazine blurb. His son Matthew, 3, and daughter Samantha, 9, have climbed on top of a giant sorting table filled with cardboard, fabric and plastic elements used to decorate a model of the structure. [ . . . ]

Today, artists labor where the funeral workers once did. Their huge, high-ceilinged studios flank two 19th-century courtyards with sloping glass ceilings. Below one courtyard are the stables — still labeled as such in faded letters — from which carriages would clip-clop up a ramp, pick up the festooned coffins, then go collect the dead from homes or hospitals. [ . . . ]

“Paris as a city is being emptied of its working artists,” explains Co-Director Frederic Fisbach over endive salad in the tent that is serving as a temporary cafe. “There are plenty of places in Paris for art to be shown, but not enough places for artists to work.”

Funeral ‘Factory’ Morphs Into Creative Center for Paris Artists (Bloomberg)