The street artist from Nice, Toolate, transformed the Promenade des Anglais into an airport hall on Saturday, November 18. Objective: to raise public awareness about the environmental and health consequences of the extension of Terminal 2 of Nice Airport.
Toolate and his characteristic dark humor have struck again. After targeting over-tourism this summer by installing giant tourist traps in the most popular spots of the city, the street artist presents “Bomb Alert.”
He transformed a section of the Promenade des Anglais, a few meters from the Negresco, into an airport. An airline ticket counter has been recreated, designing a very peculiar boarding area. A display board offers destinations far from being paradisiacal. Flight 609 at 12:35 leaves from gate 23 for “Toxic City.”
“I signed and numbered 250 plane tickets that flight attendants distributed to passers-by, passengers could embark for dream destinations such as: nuisance on sea, cancer valley, or traffic land,” explains the artist with a keen sense of detail. The fictitious flights are operated by airlines with equally provocative names: AIR RANCE and DIRTY JET.
With this ephemeral artistic performance, the anonymous artist seeks to condemn the project to expand Terminal 2 of the Nice Côte d’Azur airport, one that he describes as “one of the biggest climate bombs of this century.” This act was carried out with the help of the Ecological and Social Alliance 06 (AES 06), which includes local branches of Greenpeace and Oxfam, as well as the Citizen Collective 06.
Against “a climatic and health bomb”
This project, approved by the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, has provoked reactions from associations and environmental defense collectives since its announcement in 2019. It plans for the creation of six additional boarding halls and the construction of two buildings of 25,000 m² each.
The work, which has already begun, is expected to be completed by 2026. It should officially “increase the theoretical passenger capacity of the airport to 18 million.” In 2022, 12.12 million passengers passed through Nice.
“These additional 7 million passengers who will indeed land in Nice will further intensify over-tourism, which suffocates our region, saturating it with traffic jams, air and noise pollution, waste, land pressure, depriving its inhabitants of water and energy,” warns the artist.
Franck Goldnadel, chairman of the board of Aéroports Côte d’Azur, assured before the summer season of 2023 “that more customers do not necessarily mean more planes, and in any case, we are working to ensure that it means as few CO2 emissions as possible.”
As during his action against Marineland last August, Toolate has disseminated QR codes inviting citizens to sign an online petition against “this scandalous project.” Titled “STOP the extension of Nice Côte d’Azur airport: a climatic and health bomb!” it currently has over 5,500 signatures.
It is not the first time that Toolate aims to raise public awareness on this issue. Last July, he already spoke of this project that would exacerbate “the problem of mass tourism,” air pollution, and the health of the Mediterranean.
