Atelier 11: Revive, Resist, Reimagine
Atelier 11 opens its doors for the European Heritage Days 2026 with a presentation to echo this year’s theme, “Heritage at Risk,” at a moment when questions of heritage—what it is, who it belongs to, and how it survives—are increasingly urgent.
Set within the historic Cité Falguière in Montparnasse, Atelier 11 is one of the last remaining 19th-century artist studios still active in a once-thriving community. Built in 1875 by artists for artists, it has witnessed over 150 years of continuous creative life. From French sculptors such as Joseph Bernard and Paul Gauguin to the École de Paris artists Modigliani, Soutine, Brancusi, and Fujita, Atelier 11 continues to welcome generations of international artists from all over the world.
Today, it is both a living studio and a fragile monument. Officially recognised as a site of regional heritage significance in Île-de-France, Atelier 11 is currently raising funds for its much-needed restoration, in partnership with the Fondation du Patrimoine.
18 September: School visits by appointment
19 & 20 September: 2 pm - 7 pm
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris
Set within the historic Cité Falguière in Montparnasse, Atelier 11 is one of the last remaining 19th-century artist studios still active in a once-thriving community. Built in 1875 by artists for artists, it has witnessed over 150 years of continuous creative life. From French sculptors such as Joseph Bernard and Paul Gauguin to the École de Paris artists Modigliani, Soutine, Brancusi, and Fujita, Atelier 11 continues to welcome generations of international artists from all over the world.
Today, it is both a living studio and a fragile monument. Officially recognised as a site of regional heritage significance in Île-de-France, Atelier 11 is currently raising funds for its much-needed restoration, in partnership with the Fondation du Patrimoine.
18 September: School visits by appointment
19 & 20 September: 2 pm - 7 pm
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris
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Preservation in Action: Protecting a Living Legacy
Participating in the 2026 European Heritage Days “Heritage at Risk” is not symbolic: Atelier 11 is itself heritage in peril; both its tangible and intangible heritages are at risk.
Atelier 11’s heritage preservation project sits at the intersection of three essential focuses of this year’s theme: to revive a nearly vanished artistic lineage and the memory of the École de Paris; to resist disappearance by highlighting issues arising from urbanization and gentrification; and to reimagine how heritage continues through contemporary creation, with arts residencies and collective programs.
Atelier 11 is a site in transition, where heritage is continuously negotiated. The 2026 European Heritage Days invite reflection on the fragile condition of cultural heritage in a changing world. Atelier 11 echoes this fragility as a historic site at risk of structural loss, and the termination of its artistic legacy.
Throughout the Heritage Days, we invite visitors to enter this space resting between past and future, preservation and transformation, disappearance and reinvention. In opening its doors, Atelier 11 joins wider contemplations present in this annual occasion: heritage is not only what we inherit, but what we choose to sustain.
Atelier 11’s heritage preservation project sits at the intersection of three essential focuses of this year’s theme: to revive a nearly vanished artistic lineage and the memory of the École de Paris; to resist disappearance by highlighting issues arising from urbanization and gentrification; and to reimagine how heritage continues through contemporary creation, with arts residencies and collective programs.
Atelier 11 is a site in transition, where heritage is continuously negotiated. The 2026 European Heritage Days invite reflection on the fragile condition of cultural heritage in a changing world. Atelier 11 echoes this fragility as a historic site at risk of structural loss, and the termination of its artistic legacy.
Throughout the Heritage Days, we invite visitors to enter this space resting between past and future, preservation and transformation, disappearance and reinvention. In opening its doors, Atelier 11 joins wider contemplations present in this annual occasion: heritage is not only what we inherit, but what we choose to sustain.
Open Studio: Global Perspectives on Heritage
During the Open Studio, Atelier 11 welcomes artists in residence Māhina Bennett and Matariki Bennett, whose practices engage in a powerful dialogue between heritage, memory, and the survival of intangible knowledge systems across the world.
Māhina & Matariki Bennett are Indigenous Māori women from New Zealand. Matariki is a poet and writer, and Māhina is a multimedia visual artist. Through their work, they explore themes of identity, gender, history, and the lasting impact of colonialism on Māori peoples, in their homeland. Their practices are grounded in whakapapa, a Māori concept of genealogy and relational knowledge that connects people to ancestors, land, and traditions.
At Atelier 11, their work extends the theme of “heritage in peril” beyond Europe, opening it to a global and postcolonial reflection. Through poetry, performance, and visual work, they explore cycles of life, grief, severance, and continuity. Their presentation considers fundamental questions shared by Atelier 11: how do we hold onto what risks being erased?
Māhina & Matariki Bennett are Indigenous Māori women from New Zealand. Matariki is a poet and writer, and Māhina is a multimedia visual artist. Through their work, they explore themes of identity, gender, history, and the lasting impact of colonialism on Māori peoples, in their homeland. Their practices are grounded in whakapapa, a Māori concept of genealogy and relational knowledge that connects people to ancestors, land, and traditions.
At Atelier 11, their work extends the theme of “heritage in peril” beyond Europe, opening it to a global and postcolonial reflection. Through poetry, performance, and visual work, they explore cycles of life, grief, severance, and continuity. Their presentation considers fundamental questions shared by Atelier 11: how do we hold onto what risks being erased?
Photography: memory as resistance
Alongside this living studio experience, the 2026 edition also engages with the second European Heritage Days theme: "Patrimoine de la photographie," on the occasion of the Bicentenary of Photography.
Photography is central to how heritage is seen, remembered, and transmitted. At Atelier 11, this question is explored through the work of Croatian artist SofijaSilvia, former resident of the atelier, whose project Transmissions (2025) transformed the building into a photographic subject in its own right.
In her images, Atelier 11 is not a static monument but a fragile organism—its walls marked by time, its surfaces carrying the traces of generations of artists. Photography becomes an act of care and preservation: a way of documenting what is slowly disappearing, and of making visible what risks erasure.
Her pieces trace the living memory of the atelier through its textures, resisting loss by recording its current fragile physical state, while activating a transnational dialogue between Paris and other European and international sites of memory.
Photography is central to how heritage is seen, remembered, and transmitted. At Atelier 11, this question is explored through the work of Croatian artist SofijaSilvia, former resident of the atelier, whose project Transmissions (2025) transformed the building into a photographic subject in its own right.
In her images, Atelier 11 is not a static monument but a fragile organism—its walls marked by time, its surfaces carrying the traces of generations of artists. Photography becomes an act of care and preservation: a way of documenting what is slowly disappearing, and of making visible what risks erasure.
Her pieces trace the living memory of the atelier through its textures, resisting loss by recording its current fragile physical state, while activating a transnational dialogue between Paris and other European and international sites of memory.
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“I am responding to the pulsating energy of the place radiating through the layers of history that are peeling off its walls. The Atelier is fragile, cracking under the weight of time, like a very old person. I am thinking about interconnectedness of nature and architecture, culture, society, creation, education and heritage, about the cyclicity of life and transformation, about fragility and resistance. |
Images: Atelier 11 by SofijaSilvia, 2025
