Meta:About

‘What is Kilometer Zero? But where is it? Who is it? Is it you?’ The woman was asking the question in a wine cellar in Paris. It was toward the end of one of our night-shows. On stage a writer with a pale bald head and round glasses was reading something about an orange rolling down a flight of steps. In the back was an art exhibition of books cut to ribbons. They were pouring themselves from their spines. An organisation which calls itself a zero of any kind is already attempting to annihilate definitions. The kilometer zero of a city is a place where journeys get scratched out; at the same time it is a focal point, and a clear-dawn departure. Since its foundation in 2000 — literally at Kilometer Zero Paris (at the foot of Notre Dame, right across from the Shakepeare & Co. bookstore where the founders met) — kmz has been an unstable combination of wild-eyed idealism, artful opportunism, constraints, belligerence, astonishing contingencies, hectic projects, swirling events, utopian communities, subterfuge, betrayal, raucous hedonism, sordid conditions, acts of faith both good and bad, and fulminations of an underground myth. It’s been a comet through the lives of many who came close to it, and at some point, while spinning in its tail, everyone of those people will have asked, ‘What is Kilometer Zero? But where is it? Who is it? Is it you?’ To throw some kind of a bag over the question, we normally say we are an international collective of artists and writers who come together around independent project-driven activities (as opposed to an explicit manifesto or creed). These projects take many forms, but are roughly corralled into the following pens: magazine, theatre, advocacy, night-shows, events mise en scène, and art installations, exhibitions, and performances.