2KM3 at Saint Gervais (Mont Blanc, France)

Photo: Jean Yves Raffort 

Launched by the mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jean-Marc Peillex, 2KM3 was an initiative where curator Hugues Chevallier and artist Frédéric Battle (Zoer) invited 12 French and international artists to take over a car park’s 11 floors and its façade. 2KM3 — or 2000 cubic metres — was the amount of space given to each of the 12 artists to work with during their residencies in the space. The initiative sees car parks as places where “all forms of artistic and poetic creativity are made possible”.

Photo: Jean Yves Raffort 

2KM3 was born out of a desire for the city of Saint-Gervais to become more open to new audiences and art forms, rethinking itself as a city and reinventing the public spaces so that they become hubs for artistic expression. Dedicated to urban contemporary art, this car park has become a land mark for the city, and shows how artistic these spaces can be.