VIE is a place where art, fashion, architecture and design converge. Located in the heart of Paris, VIE is a gallery and studio workspace partnering with trailblazers, thinkers, artists, and creatives to curate experiences and foster these diverse networks to gather and multiply.
VIE is where people, ideas, and creativity collide. It’s a place for those who seek more from life—more connection, expression and meaning.
VIE Projects and Studio span 320 m², with the gallery space on Boulevard Beaumarchais covering 80 m², which can be expanded to 160 m² along rue des Tournelles, stretching across an entire Parisian city block. An additional 160 m² is dedicated to a workspace fostering experimentation across all creative disciplines. Together, these two spaces represent the dual facets of a singular vision devoted to the arts and innovation.
VIE is an initiative of Michelle Lu, founder of media platform Semaine, and architect Julien De Smedt.
Massiah’s practice seeps between poetry, music, community and nightlife. His personal history, rooted in the Seventh Day Adventist Church, has brought a continual contemplation of self, challenge, rebellion and a seeking to understand the line where the moral and amoral meet.
About James Massiah
James Massiah is a poet & musician from South London, UK whose work explores ideas about sexuality, mortality & hedonism through performance, writing & visual media. His ongoing series of New Poems is released in volumes and details his day-to-day experiences of life, love and labour in London.
He has been commissioned to produce work for the BBC and the Guardian as well as featuring in campaigns for Dior, Nike, Lotus and more . He has performed readings of his work at the Tate Modern, the Courtauld, the Institute of Contemporary Arts & the Houses of Parliament & been profiled in Vogue, Dazed, i-D & GQ. He has also curated events for Boiler Room & hosts a monthly show on NTS Radio.
James also runs the poetry night Adult Entertainment, which features poets and guests from various creative disciplines reciting their work, as well as the writing salon and workshop series Adult Education.
Richie Culver
For Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin, 2025
Having previously read at Adult Entertainemnt and sharing a pollination of practices across music, language and fine art, curator Tayah Leigh Barrs invited artist and musician Richie Culver to respond to James Massiah and the body of work within Meme Meme Tekel Upharsin. The result, a poem, suggests personal reflection and celebration within an almost fictionalised tale of Nevuchadnezzar who talks to his son Belshazzar ahead of the fall of Babylon and the doomed great feast.
Happy New Year
I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a good Christmas this year, son.
Thoughts
My new year’s resolution will not be televised.
Goals
There is no goal. I am the ball.
Life
With every step — I trace the slow choreography of my disappearance.
Words
Verbalisation shapes the silence, casting thought into form - I rate myself the best male on this god fearing planet that was born from his mother.
Tears
All I have ever really wanted is for another man to look me in the eye and tell me he is proud of me. If I do not show my sons how to inhabit this world with strength and tenderness, the screen will offer them a colder version—one that mistakes dominance for worth and silence for resilience.
Sleep
Woke up — If you threaten AI it performs better.
What % are you.
Exhibition curated by Tayah Leigh Barrs in collaboration with Semaine & Vie Projects.
"Massiah" font developed with Alexander Sullivan & Max Parsons.
