Sloft #7

In this seventh bilingual French-English issue:

• From Madrid to London, passing through Loiret, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques or Paris, a scent of utopia floats over our new selection of habitats. A fragmented, polymorphic utopia, on an individual scale, like so many responses to a world whose dysfunctional nature continues to expand. Far from the grand, unambiguous narratives with totalitarian undertones, each home tells its own story and vision. That of a life where all colors coexist in a Madrid apartment (P.50). That of an existence by the water, like in an impressionistic painting (P.200). Or that of wooded days in the soft light of a barn (P.10). Like the drops that form rivers, can all these bubbles agglomerate to form a better reality?

• These individual initiatives, however beautiful they may be, should not obscure another reality: until proven otherwise, our homes still have thresholds. These open onto a common and shared space that makes their existence possible: public space. A space that has never been so fragile and yet so necessary. Between attempts at private appropriation under the guise of public interest or underinvestment, this space that belongs to everyone is truly public only when everyone can use it safely at any time of day or night. But there is still a long way to go. After the success of the Paralympic Games, it is worth considering whether, once the sports equipment has been dismantled and the extraordinary organization that made them possible has disappeared, the greatest challenge for people with disabilities will not remain this insufficiently inclusive public space. However, this must be seen as an essential embodiment of the republican promise, that of emancipating individuals in their bodies, their identities, but also their thought, by also fostering the free circulation of ideas and opinions as Jürgen Habermas expresses it. This is the theme of our central dossier coordinated by Sophie Gauthier (P.156).

For living the fullness of one's being, without suffering any form of injunction, limitation, or oppression, is the utopia that artist and photographer Romy Alizée lives and champions. Posing nude in her photos, unashamedly exposing her lesbian sexuality, she shatters representations and participates in the broad movement of women's emancipation. Romy Alizée takes her freedom as a citizen very seriously, and too bad if it makes the grumblers whose power is attacked grumble. It is daring and touching. It is necessary. This is our interview conducted by Alix Van Pée (P.113). Long live freedom.