Égouts De Paris 1861

Felix Nadar captured this image of the Paris sewers, known as "Égouts De Paris," using photography, a relatively new technology at the time. Nadar’s choice of subject matter asks us to consider the underbelly of a city celebrated for its beauty. In mid-19th century Paris, rapid urbanization brought unprecedented engineering challenges, including waste management. These sewers existed because of the radical transformation led by Baron Haussmann, who restructured Paris for modernization and control. By venturing into the darkness, Nadar, a staunch Republican, exposes the infrastructure upon which Parisian society was built, giving visibility to the labor often hidden from view. This challenges the conventional representations of Paris, inviting us to reflect on the social inequalities beneath the city's glamorous surface, as well as ponder on labor, class, and what is deemed worthy of representation.