Contemporary art in the suburbs

Those who don’t believe that contemporary art (think ‘pretentious, highbrow, trendy, urban’) and the suburbs (‘rough, dodgy, uncultured, rude’) could ever go hand in hand should pop over to the other side of the périphérique from time to time. In the last 20-odd years, between the narrow belt covered by the underground and the oh-so-distant terminuses of the RER lines, contemporary arts centres and galleries have been cropping up all over the place, each bolder and better than the last. Artists’ residences, shiny new exhibition spaces, restored historical monuments: here, between concrete and countryside, is where you’ll find all the region’s best contemporary art.