As darkness descends these guerrilla activists hit the streets, not to protest or graffiti but to build and install community infrastructure from the discarded roadside scraps of Paris, France.
Chapitre Zero is a project led by Duccio Maria Gambi and Mattia Paco Rizzi, furniture designers with a higher purpose in mind for the urban refuse they find, but with no license from the city to install their de facto illegal creations.
The evolving team of nocturnal participants uses leftover palettes, old doors and other pieces of wood to shape seats and tables which they deploy into carefully-chosen spaces, leaving local residents to wake up surrounded by useful surprises
Their process has evolved over time, from prefabricating their pieces to working onsite with portable power tools to build with whatever waste is at hand, bending, fastening, screwing and nailing as they go.
This trash-taking approach naturally requires a degree of planning and preparedness but also a sense of the impromptu – much like other forms of ad hoc guerrilla street art.
If there is a twist to this particular tale, though, perhaps it is as follows: you can get away with a great deal in public if you seem to be doing something to improve the context you are working within. For their part, the community has responded warmly, throwing impromptu picnics, meetings and birthday parties in these unexpected new spaces.
