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As guest curator at the Louvre in Paris this month, Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison mixes ancient art with slam poetry, aiming to open dialogue between the historic art museum and young rappers in the troubled French suburbs.
"I was instantly interested in making the connection" between the Louvre and the youths of suburbs, Morrison said at the start of the month-long event organised around her chosen theme of "The Foreigner's Home".
Last month saw the first anniversary of the start of three weeks of riots, France's worst in 40 years, by disgruntled youth, mainly of immigrant descent, in the French suburbs.
The US novelist, whose works explore questions of slavery and African American identity, said that French descendants of Africans or other foreigners should look to contributions to US culture by African Americans, such as jazz or rap, for inspiration.
"They created within their country a powerful culture that was specifically of themselves but, at the same time, magnificently universal," she told reporters.
"The point is that you can use your disadvantages. Out of disadvantage and energy comes a new thing that has never been seen before."
Once immigrants are settled, they and their descendants are well placed to inject new ideas into society, she said.
"After the please, please, let us in, comes the other thing which is the creative energy that is inside."
The issue of feeling at home or not in a foreign country is relevant to many people today, Morrison said, referring not only to refugees and exiles, or first-, second- or third generation immigrants, but also diplomats and humanitarian workers.
Interested in how writers represent their "home", the author suggested the theme to the Louvre and worked with a team from the museum "to try to involve as many disciplines as possible".
With Morrison as a focal point, the events unite art forms through the ages, from the treatment of foreigners in ancient Greek, Egyptian and Assyrian art works, to discussions with international authors, film projections, music and a performance by 10 slammers offering their interpretations of masterpieces of French and Italian painting.
Slam poetry is poetry performed in the form of rap.
"I'm really interested in something I can only call 'unpoliced language', language that is outside the gaze of the cops," said Morrison, who is also due to visit youths in a Paris suburb during her trip to the French capital.
The project is the second time the Louvre, open to the public since 1793, has invited a guest curator to suggest a new approach to its collections and to spark cultural debate.
In 2005, Robert Badinter, a prominent French politician, lawyer and professor, took part for the first time in what is now an annual initiative to invite thinkers, writers, composers and artists to the museum.
"They're capable of bringing out something new from our art collections and from our public," said Henri Loyrette, director of the Louvre, which has some six million visitors annually.
Others working on Morrison's project this year include video artist Peter Welz and choreographer William Forsythe, who created a video installation together based on an unfinished portrait by Francis Bacon.
In the piece, Forsythe twists and turns his body in movements inspired by the portrait, wearing black lead on his gloves and shoes, his movements recorded on a sheet of paper on the floor as he dances.
The video, filmed from several angles, superimposes his body and the painting.
Forsythe said he aimed "to say how could other bodies, if there were other bodies in this portrait, occupy this space".
The Louvre project is an important way to keep art alive, he added, by connecting living and deceased artists: the cut-off point for the Louvre's collection is 1848.
"In the museum, all the artists are already dead, but we are not."
Morrison, due to read unpublished excerpts from her next novel, "Mercy" during the November 6 to 29 event, said she valued the French attitude to art.
"That commitment to art, its culture, that everyone takes very, very seriously and it shows, is entirely different to what I'm accustomed to in the United States."
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AFP 101129 GMT 11 06
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