Nantes Goes Surreal: France’s Most Artistic City Invites You to Step into the Strange

This summer, Le Voyage à Nantes returns with a bold new twist: L’Étrangeté (“the Strangeness”). From June to August, the entire city of Nantes transforms into a vast, open-air gallery filled with large-scale artworks, curious installations, and surreal encounters — all free to explore.

Highlights include:

• Iván Argote’s, mirrored rebellion against a Louis XVI monument, “Antípodos”

• Prune Nourry’s, 17-metre-long “Mothership” sculpture, part womb, part boat, rising from the city square,

• Willem de Haan, provocative reimagining of the Place Royale fountain “Latest Version”

• A full-scale wooden tram by Laurent Tixador riding through town like a mobile forest hut,

Épilogue sylvestre. Laurent Tixador VAN 2025 © P. Piron

“Epilogue sylvestre”

A giant, playable chessboard in a city park, A. Ferruel & F. Guédon

And a mischievous parrot puppet suspended in mid-air, courtesy of artist Éléonore Saintagnan.

This is not just an art trail — it’s a full-blown summer experience of sculpture, satire and sensory exploration, woven into the streets, gardens, and riverbanks of this historic Loire city. Add in cutting-edge museum shows (including a major Hokusai exhibition in the castle of the dukes of Brittany, and Gloria Friedmann exhibition at the HAB Gallery), open studios, and botanical installations — and you’ve got one of Europe’s most original cultural getaways.

MORE INFO: https://www.levoyageanantes.fr/en/

WHEN: 28 June – 31 August 2025

PRICE: Free access to outdoor installations. Museum exhibitions ticketed.