Work Description

Sakae Ōsugi (*1885, †1923) was a Japanese anarchist. He traveled to Europe in 1923 and gave a May Day speech in Saint-Denis. There he was arrested by civilian police. He was sentenced to three weeks in prison and deportation for passport offences. On 2 June he was sent back to Japan where he later was murdered in the »Amakasu Incident«. In his book »My escapes from Japan« he mentiones a »workers’ hall« near the Basilica in Saint-Denis. Most likely he refers to the »Bourse du Travail« of Saint-Denis which was located in the Hotel de Ville at that time. In Feb 2023, almost 100 years after Sakae Ōsugi’s experiences in Saint-Denis, Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber walked from Hotel de Ville past Passage Saulger, rue des Ursulines and rue Suger until they finally reached Rue Génin, where you find the current Bourse du Travail«. Marie Tesson, the author of the text, constructed an itinerary, taking as her starting point the building where Stuke and Sieber ended their walk: the Bourse du Travail in Saint-Denis. She wanders through this area that is undergoing transformation until reaching the Tour Pleyel, attracted by the melancholy of its already outdated architecture.

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