Berkley Center

For a city so steeped in artistic expression and built upon layers of a dignified history that manifests in the monuments that dot the streets, it seems bizarre to portray Paris as a blank canvas. Before starting my study abroad here, I had sculpted an image of Paris as a city plucked out of the stream of time. But after living and breathing here for two months, I’ve discovered that the inhabitants have built upon their city’s perfection just by changing their perspectives on life. From street art pieces that deserve their own exhibits in museums to the electric cars that whir along the grand boulevards, each contribution to the blank canvas of Paris shares the common thread of rejecting “no, it’s impossible” and embracing “yes, go for it” as you pursue your dreams.

I opened my eyes to the blank canvas of Paris during my first week in the city. In the square outside of the Sacre-Coeur Cathedral at Montmatre, every few steps stood artists and their canvases. As I made my rounds, my dancer spirit dragged my eye to a woman who displayed her artwork, which depicted ballerina feet in pointe shoes. As I approached to get a closer look at the shoes painted in sky blue or matador cape red, I noted that the paper she used were actually yellowed squares of sheet music. I could not resist asking the artist about her inspiration. With a wry smile, she told me that although she had never learned to dance, she simply channeled her aspirations through creating art on the music that helps ballerinas express their own art. In other words, when she said “yes, I can” to her dreams, opportunities emerged where she never expected. I had already fished out my wallet before she finished talking. Walking away with two paintings, I began my journey, seeing just how Parisians were reinventing their city.

The next step on this journey simply required me to turn my head slightly from side to side to admire the street art. If you take the extra few seconds and pay attention closely, there is enough street art to transform the city into a living museum—from murals that cover an entire apartment building to mosaics hiding on the corner of a wall. I was particularly entranced by a mural of an African girl hugging a panda. I was most moved by the portrayal of the girl’s Afro haircut. The artist had created a halo composed of yellow, orange, violet, pink, and magenta specks of paint, as if the dreams of childhood were swirling around her head. Perhaps the artist played a double entendre by affirming how each Parisian wall is a literal blank canvas, while also reminding passersby of the beauty waiting to emerge just from a simple “yes, you can” to a child as she starts pursuing her dreams.

This spirit of reinvention has even permeated into how Parisians move around their city. Every few blocks or so, I would come across a row of charging stations jutting out of the sidewalk, each wired to a smart car. After conducting further research, I found that this was part of an electric car sharing service called Autolib, which was founded in 2011. When the company rolled out its first fleet of cars, more than 150,000 people signed up, and the number is steadily growing. As these cars hum along the roads, their quiet engines and convenient hop-in/hop-off service truly let riders live out the company’s motto: “Free like air.” But more importantly, the car-sharing model is crucial for exposing more people to both the unmatched driving experience and the environmental friendliness of electric cars. As climate change begins to grip the world, even a city as timeless as Paris is showing that the space to reinvent itself only reveals itself when people say “yes, we can,” especially to dreams of a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable future.

In February, Paris launched its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, tapping into the latent vivacity of the city as its selling point. Overnight (and I am not exaggerating here) the city blossomed with banners containing the motto “La Force d’un Rêve”—“The Drive of a Dream.” I believe that no motto is more fitting for this city. From its groundbreaking inventors to its anonymous artists, Paris is overflowing with dreams that drive the city to discover all the blank canvases hidden beneath its surface.