About the Creative City: 

The city of Enghien-les-Bains was designated a UNESCO City of Media Arts in 2013. For the last 10 years, Media Arts have been the subject of a coordinated strategy in the fields of education, tourism, economy and the city’s cultural, artistic and social development.

The Arts Centre, a space for digital creation subsidized by the French Ministry for Culture and Communication, is one of the main spearheads of this policy in connection with the various services of the city. A place of creation, research, production and dissemination, it boasts a demanding annual programme and implements numerous mediation activities aimed at all types of audiences. Thanks to cutting edge artistic and technical expertise, the establishment is also a platform for exchanges and debates on the links between the arts, science and technology.

Media Arts are a source of attraction for Enghien-les-Bains. They irrigate and revitalize urban spaces through ambitious video-mapping projects and the outreach of the international biennial Bains Numériques which, with its wide range of artistic proposals, an international competition and professional meetings, transforms the city into an open laboratory. Enghien-les-Bains is also involved in partnerships and actions through the RAN, Network of Media Arts, initiated by the Arts Centre in 2007 and which today has around 40 members across the world, as well as numerous collaborative projects with Canada, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Added Value: 

As a Creative City of Media Arts, Enghien-les-Bains envisages:

  • Bringing local actors together around a common strategy supporting digital creation;
  • Encouraging a stronger participation of citizens in Media Arts projects;
  • Sharing its expertise with other member cities and fulfilling its role of Coordinator in the Media Arts city group. In this sense, the city is committed to:
- Supporting the mobility of digital works and artists through a common co-production and co-diffusion platform between the Media Arts cities, based on a cross-residence project, collaborations between festivals and the sharing and transfer of expertise;
- Creating a monitoring tool for the emergence of new artistic scripts and forms;
- Strengthening the position of the Media Arts cities within the network by implementing a joint communication strategy and fruitful synergies between Media Arts and other creative sectors (design, traditional arts etc).
Member since: 
2013
Contact: 
Dominique Roland, Director, Arts center creative_city_EnghienlesBains@enghien95.fr
Membership Monitoring Reports: 
PDF icon Enghien-les-Bains Report n°1 (2017) - in French
Related Links: 
Arts Centre