White Night 2025 in Charleville-Mézières

A celebration of contemporary art

This Saturday, October 11, 2025, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., Charleville-Mézières will be transformed into a vast open-air art gallery on the occasion of White Night, a major cultural event of the fall.

Inspired by the Parisian concept, White Night is a free event accessible to all, offering more than 20 artistic installations, performances, exhibitions and concerts spread across the city's emblematic and unusual places.

A city invested by art

A rich program

La White Night will bring together more than twenty artistic proposals, spread across the city’s emblematic places. Visitors will be able to discover contemporary works in various forms: site-specific installations, dance performances, drawn concerts, immersive exhibitions, video mapping, augmented reality, puppet shows and participatory projects. Each space will become a meeting place between artists, works and audiences.

Iconic places revisited

Museums, streets, squares and public buildings will welcome these artistic creations during White Night:

• Place Ducale will be taken over by the Carabosse Company for a spectacular fire installation.
• The Ardennes, Arthur Rimbaud and Maison des Ailleurs museums will exceptionally open their doors until 1 a.m.
• The Forum, the TCM, the Voyelles Media Library, the Lebon Gallery, the Jules Verne school, the Audiophonology Center and several streets in the city center will become ephemeral artistic scenes.

Artistic tour and installations

1. Fire installation – Compagnie Carabosse (Place Ducale)

From 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., Place Ducale will be transformed during White Night by fire installations.
The flames will create a sensory and poetic landscape, inviting contemplation and wonder.

2. Creation laboratory: Wings and Paws (Jules Verne School)

Students from the Jules Verne school, accompanied by visual artists, will present an immersive exhibition around the world of insects. The school will be transformed into an artistic laboratory, promoting each stage of the creative process.

3. Tigr3ss3 – Augmented reality (10 rue Bourbon)

Spectators will be able to follow a digital creature in an ethereal dance. This augmented reality work, designed by Anne Horel and Balraj Bains, will question contemporary mutations and digital imaginations.

4. Behind the Walls – Video mapping (5 rue de l’Église)

On the walls of the building, giant hands will appear and disappear, in a poetic urban fresco created by Nathalie Maufroy with Micro-Folie.

5. Philmaton – Participatory installation (Rue de la Paix)

The 12 Volts collective will offer a collaborative video work. Visitors will record the continuation of a film in progress, which will be broadcast at the Forum at midnight.

6. Public Telephone – Sound installation (Rue de la République)

A set of vintage telephone booths will reveal sound stories.
Visitors will be able to interact with answering machines, anonymous calls and unexpected soundscapes.

Performances and shows during White Night

7. Rite – Dance performance (Rue Pierre Bérégovoy)

Students from Rouget de Lisle college will present a choreography inspired by the rituals and houses of their establishment.
This performance will celebrate the strength of the collective.

8. Carousel – Immersive exhibition (Lebon Gallery)

The KAK collective will stage an exhibition in the form of a banquet and an image carousel, combining works and installations in an original scenography.

9. Soup bar – Soups and Culture (Courtyard of the Ardennes Museum)

Visitors will be able to taste soups from all over the world, prepared by the Soupes et Culture association, in a friendly atmosphere.

10. Nuit Noire – Cartoon concert (TCM)

This show will take spectators on an oceanic and ecological journey, combining live drawing, music and poetry, inspired by the stories of Bernard Moitessier.

11. Poético Barbarie Project – Musical performance (Ardennes Museum)

This musical performance will resonate the words of Patti Smith and the illuminations of Rimbaud, in a composition mixing synthesizers, barrel organ and recitations.

Exhibitions and museums during White Night

12. Put on your red shoes – Dance performance (Ardennes Museum)

Émilie Girault will dance in the window, in an intimate and silent celebration, questioning withdrawal into oneself and celebrating the freedom of the body.

13. Inflated course – Immersive exhibition (Ardennes Museum)

The museum is transformeda in a festive and fun universe, inviting you to rediscover its collections in a pumped-up atmosphere.

14. From the stage to the museum – Puppets (Ardennes Museum)

More than 100 puppets will be on display.
From 11 p.m., the show “La Courtisane Amoureuse” will be presented in its entirety.

15. The party is permanent #12 – FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (Rimbaud Museum)

The video work “Lonely Villa” by Jesper Just will be projected in the attic of the museum, exploring the vulnerability of feelings.

16. The Éphémère Gallery – Street art (House of Elsewhere)

This exhibition will highlight local street art artists, echoing the Rimbaud route. Works by KTD, LGM-1, IEMZA, CÉZ ART, L8Zon and SMAK3 will be presented.

17. Hello Arthur – Digital Twin (House of Elsewhere)

Visitors will be able to interact with a digital version of Arthur Rimbaud, explorer and poet.

Participatory and inclusive projects

18. CHATS discovering the frescoes (House of Elsewhere)

Students from Scamaroni college will guide visitors through the frescoes of the Rimbaud route, sharing anecdotes and unusual interpretations.

19. What if we registered? – Sound performance (Vowels Media Library)

The company L’Horloge Qui Ne Sonne Pas will broadcast recordings made with students and residents of EHPADs, around the poem “Sensation” by Rimbaud.

20. Female Harmony(s) – Concert (Forum)

The Charleville-Mézières Harmony Orchestra will perform works by great composers and committed artists, mixing classical and contemporary music.

21. Fiammiferi – Puppet show (CAES)

The Compagnie des Six Faux Nez will present a poetic and musical adaptation of the tale “The Little Match Girl”, combining puppets, singing and instruments.

22. Neighborhood(s) – Photographs (Rue du Moulin)

Hugo Petit will exhibit photographs taken with residents, building a sensitive archive of the lived territory.

23. Nota Bene Workshop – Exhibition (Rue Pierre Gillet)

Émilie Devillé and Cécile Ugarte will open their workshop to present their artistic worlds between line, cut, color and contrast.

Complete program

You can download the program for the 2025 edition of White Night by clicking on one of the two images below:

White Night 2025 will impose itself like a highlight of life cultural carolomacerian.
By investing in public space and heritage places, it will allow a rediscovery of the city through the prism of contemporary art.
This edition of White Night will value local creation, citizen participation and the diversity of artistic forms, in a spirit of celebration, sharing and accessibility.

Practical information

All practical information regarding the White Night event is available on the White Night website. town of Charleville-Mézières.