The Hill That Thinks in Black and White

August 9, 2026

Monday’s list said Butte aux Cailles, so naturally I went Sunday. A stencilled rat guarding a doorway, and Aydar’s flowering women watching the street from two walls of the thirteenth. All of it in black and white, which is to say, my language.

Sunday’s list said Rue Mouffetard early, then the open air art markets. Monday’s list said Butte aux Cailles. So obviously I woke up, looked at both, and did Monday’s on Sunday. I am aware this is not how lists work.

The Butte aux Cailles is a little hill village that Paris grew around and never quite swallowed. Low houses, narrow streets, and walls that talk. This quarter does its street art small… stencils, paste-ups, a note on an electrical box, and it has done so since Miss.Tic was spraying her black stencilled women and their one liners around these streets. On Rue des Cinq Diamants, door number 27 has its own doorman. A rat, stencilled above the frame, reading a map titled Le Paris Gourmand. Someone else has left a green handprint on the junction box beside him. Nobody scrubs any of it off.

Doorway of number 27 rue des Cinq Diamants with a stencilled rat above the frame reading a map of Paris titled Le Paris Gourmand, and a green painted handprint on the junction box beside it — Number 27 has a doorman. He is consulting the map before he lets you in.

A few doors up at number 31, a woman made entirely of flowers leans out of the top corner of the facade. She is by Aydar, who pastes these big black and white collages around the quarter… hair of dahlias, skin of lace and paisley, not a millimetre of plain surface left on her. Below, on the black shutter, a second face keeps watch over the street, chin resting on one hand like it has been waiting a while. A whole house front working as a gallery wall, and the geraniums in the window box carrying on regardless.

Cream facade of number 31 rue des Cinq Diamants with a black and white paste-up by Aydar of a woman made of flowers in the upper corner, and a painted portrait of a pensive face on the dark shutter below — Number 31, rue des Cinq Diamants. Aydar’s flowering woman up top, and the shutter underneath doing its own quiet portrait.

Around the corner on Rue Gérard I found another of these women, or her sister, tipped sideways against the render with her flower crown coming apart at the edges. I stood close for a long time. Every petal is drawn, every curl of pattern on her skin is linework, and there is no colour anywhere because none is needed. You can imagine what that does to someone who thinks in ink and black and white for a living. An entire suburb speaking my language, and my camera now full of line reference to prove I listened.