Le Printemps de Septembre à Toulouse, Le Printemps de la Photographie, Le Printemps de Cahors... The festival founded by Mathé Perrin in 1991 has had multiple names and lives while always maintaining the desire to support artists, encourage audacious creativity and promote encounters between artworks and mainstream audiences in order to act as an echo chamber for the great questions of the day. Today, when environmental issues, the position of artists in our projects for society, and the role of art as a vector of cohesion and agency are core concerns, at the instigation of its new president Eugénie Lefebvre, the festival has become Le Nouveau Printemps.
A festival curated each year with a partner-artist
In the conviction that artists’ visions are key to a more sensitive understanding of what is on the line in a globalized world of dizzying complexity, Le Nouveau Printemps will invite, in June each year, an artist from a discipline linked to the visual arts (architecture, film, music, literature, dance, etc) to co-curate its program. Irreverent, minimalist or exuberant, poetical or political, with each edition, the festival will reinvent itself. Guided by the partner-artist, Le Nouveau Printemps will showcase a distinct universe to reveal, year by year, multiple visions of art.
A sustainable festival rooted in an urban landscape
The partner-artist will be invited to bring their unique gaze to bear on the city, show their curiosity toward its spaces and inhabitants, shake up routines, and slip between cracks. Like a laboratory on a human scale – featuring a different neighborhood each year – Le Nouveau Printemps will combine the ephemeral, the essence of a festival, and the sustainable, which is essential and necessary.
Le Nouveau Printemps thus continues to support responsible artistic creations that engage with all audiences, are open to the world, and are attentive to our environments.
For its first edition in 2023, in Saint-Cyprien neighborhood, Le Nouveau Printemps has chosen to partner with matali crasset, a multidisciplinary creator with a longstanding commitment to ecological transition.
In 2024, Le Nouveau Printemps has invited the author and filmmaker Alain Guiraudie to devise the edition from May 30 to June 30, in museums and public squares, stores and parks of the Carmes – Saint-Etienne district, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Toulouse.
The third edition of Nouveau Printemps, conceived by Kiddy Smile, took place from May 23 to June 22, 2025, and took over the Saint Sernin/Arnaud Bernard neighborhood.
For the next edition, from May 29 to June 28, 2026, Nouveau Printemps will take over the Marengo/Bonnefoy/Jolimont neighborhood and feature artist Rossy de Palma!
— Board of Directors
Eugénie Lefebvre, chairwoman
Eva Albarran - CEO, Eva Albarran & Co
Anne-Laure Belloc - Director of Digital Arts and Culture Programming, Stereolux
Isabelle Gaudefroy - Deputy artistic managing director, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
Evelyne Toussaint - Professor emerita of contemporary art history, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and researcher
Laurent Le Bon - President, Pompidou Center
Frédérique Mehdi - Director of cultural action, Institut du Monde Arabe
Pierre-Olivier Nau - Chairman & CEO of Manatour, President of Medef 31
Eliott Pinel - Project Manager, General Management, La Villette
Honorary president: Mathé Perrin, founder of Le Printemps de Septembre
Eugénie Lefebvre, President
Eva Albarran
Director, Eva Albarran & co
Anne-Laure Belloc
Director of Digital Arts and Culture Programming, Stereolux
Isabelle Gaudefroy
Artistic Director
Evelyne Toussaint
Professor Emeritus of Contemporary Art History, Toulouse Jean Jaurès University, Researcher
Laurent Le Bon
President, Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture
Frédérique Mehdi
Director of Cultural Activities, Arab World Institute
Pierre-Olivier Nau
President and CEO, Manatour; President, Medef 31
Eliott Pinel
Project Manager, General Management, La Villette
Honorary President: Mathé Perrin, Founder, Printemps de Septembre
Clément Postec
Artistic Director
Anaelle Bourguignon
Executive Director
Lucie Champagnac
Head of Production
Anne-Laure M'Ba
Head of Communication & press relations