Everywhere, the future looms. Between gloomy tales of anticipation and terrifying scientific projections, imagining what comes next is becoming increasingly difficult. But at the age of 14, even if the word “tomorrow” carries its fair share of doubts, desires, and fears, the future itself can serve as an antidote – a way to escape and recover.

What does the city of the future look like? That’s the question that sparked the editorial project La Cité du Turfu, first launched in 2018 and revived in 2022 by Dome Collectif, in partnership with the ASAD association. In each edition, a group of teenagers from La Courneuve explore the tools of science fiction and speculative storytelling to reimagine the future of the Mail de Fontenay – an iconic building soon to be demolished as part of the urban redevelopment of the Cité des 4000.

Through workshops blending various creative practices, these young people probe alternative futures for the building. Far from the usual dystopian narratives linked to science fiction, it is in utopian and critical visions that the teenagers of La Cité du Futur have found themselves – a shared instinct that reflects their ability to challenge dominant narratives and reinvent their own stories.

At the invitation of the Mail residents’ association, the project set itself up in one of the building’s flats, dubbed Apartment 101 – a space where artistic and cultural projects have taken shape with residents of the 4000 Sud neighbourhood and its surroundings. Conceived as a space for creation and experimentation, Apartment 101 embodies the ambition to resist the colonial gaze – a way of thinking that legitimises colonial power, notably through the dehumanisation of people and the devaluation of non-Western cultures – by promoting the reclamation and celebration of marginalised knowledge and narratives.

As the Mail de Fontenay nears its disappearance, the Chambre des Échos at the Palais de Tokyo offers to convey an echo of it – if only for the duration of an exhibition.