Editorial

“A contemporary arts festival organized each year with an artist in residence for a neighborhood in Toulouse.”

Placing artists at the heart of the festival and showcasing art in all its dimensions. It was with this central idea in mind that we reinvented the festival three years ago by creating Le Nouveau Printemps. 

We wanted to invite an artist to share their vision of the world and their vision of art each year. Borrowing the term “associated artist” from the performing arts and affirming the richness of transdisciplinarity, each year we offer our associated artists a real change of scenery, inviting them to look at the visual arts from their various worlds—design, cinema, literature, music, fashion, and more. Believing deeply in this dialogue between artistic mediums, we are committed to broadening horizons and offering the people of Toulouse, French and international visitors, art lovers, and the curious a multitude of perspectives and reinterpretations of contemporary art, that is, the art of today, by artists who live and transform all the states of the world we inhabit together. 

Thus, no two editions are alike, while still retaining a family resemblance. The associated artists pass the baton to one another with complicity, without repeating themselves, each bringing their own aesthetic, worldview, community of artists, and state of mind to the edition they imagine. matali crasset, Alain Guiraudie,Kiddy Smile, and in 2026 Rossy de Palma color edition after edition of a neighborhood in Toulouse to better reveal its uniqueness, its history, its architecture, its inhabitants, and its customs. 

Every spring, we welcome more and more visitors, schoolchildren, and professionals. The artists, associates, and guests are always personally involved in the festival adventure, creating a spirit of family that is so important at a time when this powerful word is sadly becoming commonplace. While the world rumbles, they hear it and open up paths of resilience. As the economy trembles, the festival and its public and private partners are holding out as long as possible.

Because we are convinced that art and creativity represent spaces of freedom that are more necessary than ever. And Rossy de Palma embodies this freedom so wonderfully for this new edition. 

Associating Rossy de Palma with the 2026 edition of Nouveau Printemps means choosing curiosity and taking the precious risk of the unexpected.

Rossy de Palma responds to our invitation with a true declaration of love for Toulouse and creativity. She invites artists who are dear to her, long-time companions or recent acquaintances. True to her curiosity and commitments, she also involves artistic communities from the neighborhood.

More than 40 artists are participating in the edition, creating works in unusual locations in the Gare neighborhood or presenting existing works in several group exhibitions: Diaspora Wonderland; Entre les deux, des chemins; Danses interdites. These exhibitions are taking shape with the help of curators as flamboyant as our associate artist: Lotfi Aoulad, Meriem Berrada, and Manuel Pomar. We would like to extend our warmest thanks to them, as well as to Jérôme Dupeyrat and Julie Martin.

It would be futile to try to summarize each of the experiences that Nouveau Printemps invites you to enjoy this year. What matters, perhaps, is the path they take us on. When we wake up, will we remember the shape they have created together? From one country to another, from one city to another, could it be the image of a free woman?

Rossy de Palma believes in art, by and for everyone. As a means of escaping the realities that the world imposes on us. Perhaps we are in the memories of Dreamland that Gala Hernández López explores in her film? Without giving up any of the concrete resistance inscribed in Nicolas Daubanes' concrete, we rediscover the childhood of art with Daud's lights, carried away by Pilar Albarracín's fabulous ironies. Then Ángel Pantoja warns us, and collective memories reveal themselves to be attentive and benevolent with Ernesto Artillo, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar, Mia Ftz & Pauline Touchais Leriche. The group grows stronger and, following the artists of the IPN Collective, together we take care of places, bodies, and figures. Portraits of women from another world emerge, that of Manuel Outumuro: an artist's life—a trajectory—through the eyes of great film performers, an immense dream of light. Or is it Rossy de Palma, the great actress, who illuminates us with her artist's gaze?

We wanted to build a bridge with Spain and the free world of dreams. Rossy de Palma responds with a clever and elegant lucidity, both grounded and boundless. Panache. The 2026 edition of Nouveau Printemps gives a voice to artists and local artistic communities in Toulouse and its region, dreamers of a world to be reinvented.

What a pleasure it is to believe in it and build it together! How fortunate we are to welcome Rossy de Palma, eternal teenager, from Madrid's Movida to the lights of Toulouse.

The opening weekend will be a highlight. To inaugurate the exhibitions, we will first celebrate the artists, with performances by Pilar Albarracín, Ernesto Artillo, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar - and Rossy de Palma! Dancers, choreographers, flamenco and fandango singers will join us: Inka Romani, La Chachi, Maui. Other magical figures will also appear: Ahmed Umar.

With Rossy de Palma and her guests, the Nouveau Printemps continues to assert itself as a local and international, intergenerational, iconoclastic art form, faithful to its eternal youth and annual renewal.

Naturally, you are all invited to the dance!

“I am delighted to be the associate artist of Nouveau Printemps. I would like to make a true declaration of love to all the people of Toulouse, to the artists and artisans... To capture the spirit of this city, to draw inspiration from its stories, its desires, its voices. And to do all this... with pleasure!”

Rossy de Palma, interpreter of art.