The Paris Catacombs
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
"There is a profound, heavy beauty in the Catacombs that demands a specific kind of silence. It’s one thing to read about the 18th-century evacuations of the Saints-Innocents, but to stand amidst that history is to feel the scale of Paris itself. Even as the graffiti caught my eye, I felt a deep sense of reverence for the sheer magnitude of the lives resting there. It’s a breathtaking reminder that beneath the streets we walk, there is a labyrinth of stories waiting to be told with respect."
-Jay B. Kalagayan
In the late eighteenth century, when major public health problems tied to the city's cemeteries led to a decision to transfer their contents to an underground site. Paris authorities chose an easily accessible site that was, at the time, located outside the capital: the former Tombe-Issoire quarries under the plain of Montrouge. The first evacuations were made from 1785 to 1787 and concerned the largest cemetery in Paris, the Saints-Innocents cemetery.
Even the maze of the catacombs are not safe from creative minds as brick walls have been tagged, marked and carved with signatures and phrases. It appears that nothing was done with spray paint, so all the tags and writings must have been done with markers. Compared to other tagging spots, there isn't much color variation here. Not sure why that is, but the bits of color do draw the eye in. This leads to an interesting question : Is it really appropriate to be graffitiing in a place full of human remains?
Perhaps this question becomes even more critical when one views the pictures above, as people have taken it upon themselves to tag an informational sign, as well as actual bone. This also brings up the topic of what graffiti actually means, though that answer can be different for everyone who partakes in that hobby. It makes you wonder if they feel accomplished when they tag such risky and controversial places, or maybe they just want their presence to be known. Much can be speculated and admired from graffiti, wherever it may exist.
"Walking through the Tombe-Issoire quarries felt like stepping directly into the anatomy of a city’s soul. Seeing those marker tags and carvings etched into the silence of the ossuary sparked a new direction for MeSseD; it forced me to think about how our past—literally our bones—interacts with the modern urge to be 'seen.' Future stories will definitely dive deeper into that friction: the messy, colorful layers of human ego pressing up against the cold, limestone reality of what we leave behind."
-Jay B. Kalagayan
Interpretations and research by Victor Kirkbride and Jay Kalagayan
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