CHILDREN

PASSAGE INTERDIT

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In Fribourg, between 1993 and 1997, Olivier Suter,Serge Crausaz and Claude Mottas created and managed a bistro: Passage Interdit. The decor and the animations are surprising. Elevator seats allow customers to play chess several meters high, a mannequin shoots at the crowd with a water pistol, goldfish pass through the flaming hoops of their aquarium, voyeur's heads lurk in the women's toilets whose floor is covered with scales, fifty-centimeter rulers are hung next to the men's pissoirs surmounted by screens where films are shown. An installation allows rain to fall on the tables while lightning illuminates the room. Once, a river flows down the stairs, another, a fire is lit in the middle of the space, on the floor.

The bar is a permanent joyful, convivial place of celebration, which is hardly disturbed, on occasion, by an old mechanical drunk who shakes his head and grumbles in his corner.