

Today, visitors enter as if stepping into a cave, through a ground-level opening near the Porte de La Villette in Paris. The original "explorers" of the abandoned building would typically climb over fences to discreetly slip inside. The first visit dates back to August 2010, when the newly formed graffiti duo Lek & Sowat entered the former supermarket. The two artists, captivated, discovered a world frozen in time across four floors, including two parking levels and a basement. They fell "in love" with the textures of the walls and ceilings, the contrasts between light and shadow, and the building's vanishing lines, which their deconstructed graffiti art followed and embraced.
The space also bore countless traces of the many lives that passed through this in-between place, where migrants, families and drug users once lived together before an evacuation and enhanced security measures. The floor was littered with toys and trash, pots and pans, shoes, cradles, and unsent letters written to reassure loved ones from a precarious exile. Various inscriptions already covered some walls, and partially stripped cars were still parked among a forest of columns.
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