Interview with Agathe Poisson-Guillou (EDHEC Masters 2006), Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou Redeployment Project

After an early career in finance, Agathe Poisson-Guillou (EDHEC Grande École 2006) enriched her academic portfolio with a degree in art history at the University of Lille. An internship undertaken at the Whitechapel Gallery in London confirmed her desire to work in the cultural sector, but without losing sight of her invaluable management skills. She played a part in the opening of Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence and the Atelier des Lumières in Paris, and later worked in international relations at the Mucem (Museum of European and Mediterranean civilisations) in Marseille, before combining her past experiences in the role she has since taken up at the Centre Pompidou. This Parisian institution has just entered a 5-year renovation period and is currently completing the construction of a new branch in the Paris region due to open in the autumn of 2026. We caught up with Agathe, a key player in the operational oversight of these projects in which an active dialogue is taking place between heritage, accessibility and the future.

How would you summarise your current position and responsibilities?

I'll be serving as deputy director of the “Redeployment Project” at the Centre Pompidou and of “Constellation 2025-2030” (off-premises events) throughout the 5 years of renovation works. My role is to coordinate the activities linked to the ongoing work while maintaining a full programme of events at the Centre. Our staff teams, artworks, collections and activities have been transferred to temporary locations and will return to the renovated Centre in 2030. 

The initial objective behind this closure was structural work to make the premises more secure, remove asbestos, achieve compliance with current standards and improve insulation, which could only be achieved by closing the site. We also decided to revise our cultural project to make the visitor journey more fluid, make the spaces available more accessible to all audiences and return to some of the founding elements of the building, for example by widening the museum’s entrance well, thus expanding our programme of artistic events, or by containing all of the public information library (Bpi) on a single level that opens out onto the city. 

I'm also working on the opening of the Centre Pompidou in the wider Paris region in Massy, which is both a new conservation and restoration centre as well as a 3,000 m²creative space open to the public for scheduled events, exhibitions and artistic performances. 

This involves ensuring that projects are properly implemented, coordinating the different departments (construction, production, museum), and adhering to our schedules and budgets. Human resources management and interactions with trade unions are also crucial aspects of this.

How will life at the Centre Pompidou be organised while it's closed?

The Centre Pompidou is drawing on the collection at the Museum of modern and contemporary art, as well as offering a schedule of live performances, research and creative activities. We work with very different disciplines so it is essential to establish a dialogue between them. All of these activities will be maintained while the work takes place. The Centre Pompidou is not closing, it is metamorphosing. It is preparing to open with a new dimension to ensure it fully tackles the issues of the 21^st century: environment, society, inclusivity, accessibility, as well as generating greater visibility for its collections. During this unprecedented period, events will be run thanks to partnerships, joint productions and the circulation of museum collections. The Grand Palais and many other sites in France and abroad are hosting temporary exhibitions. For cinematic activities, a partnership has been formed with MK2 Bibliothèque in the 13^th arrondissement. The Bpi has moved into the Lumière building in the 12^th arrondissement, where the Kandinsky library (the Centre Pompidou’s research centre) is due to open soon. Lastly, the reserve collections and all activities linked to item processing (restoration, preparing items for loan, oversight) are due to be transferred to the new Paris region Centre Pompidou as soon as it opens. 

The Centre Pompidou embodies a powerful Parisian and French identity …

While the museum is a place for exhibitions and artistic events, it is also a living location, a space for exchanges and reflections offering a unique experience in close contact with one-of-a-kind architecture. Some people simply enter the Centre Pompidou to climb the caterpillar above the esplanade and admire the views of Paris, while others seek a more comprehensive experience taking in exhibitions and live performances. With its very powerful identity and soft power, the Centre extends its reach to local, regional, national and international levels. Making artworks accessible to the greatest number is one of the missions incumbent on museums, alongside preserving and showcasing their collections. The circulation of collections and the events we hold enhance France’s reputation abroad: we work in partnership with institutions in France and around the world to celebrate the spirit of the Centre Pompidou. In all of its projects, the Centre adapts to the local context; whether in Metz or Massy, the notion of territorial roots is essential. It’s not a matter of the Centre “showing up” and imposing its vision, but rather of finding how the local area can appropriate the museum and make it its own instead of displaying what a Parisian audience would like to see in Metz or Massy! The initiatives to reach out to all members of the public, even those who are far removed from culture, help consolidate these roots. Internationally, our partnerships are built on the idea of hosting an exhibition or running collaborations in the long term, as with the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum in Shanghai or the Centre Pompidou Málaga.

Is opening a Centre Pompidou in the wider Paris region a way to decompartmentalise the institution?

Yes, that’s right. The aim was to find a location outside Paris, but close enough to facilitate the transfer of artworks from the Centre Pompidou in the 4^th arrondissement. Our intention is to make it a space for exchanges with its direct links to Massy, a town that already has a strong cultural dynamic – it has its own school of music and opera –, while imbuing it with an international dimension. Worksite tours and early glimpses have already been organised with local inhabitants to achieve this.

At the Centre Pompidou, as in most large museums, less than 10% of collections are on exhibit (which means 90% in storage): it is of the utmost importance to promote and inject life into these reserve collections and the expertise that goes with them. The 150,000 artworks that make up our collections will be permanently reunited in the same location – up to now, large items, a certain number of sculptures and 3D works for example, were stored outside the Centre Pompidou – in ideal conditions in terms of conservation and preservation. This means that by 2030, there will no longer be any reserve items held at the Beaubourg site.

The exhibitions in Massy will offer a fresh perspective on the Centre’s collections – there will be no external loans – and the new acquisitions that enrich it. Indeed, for the purpose of this project, we have taken into consideration the expansion of our collections over the next 25 years. 

Many people are more familiar with the architecture of the Centre Pompidou than its collections. How best to promote these to the wider public?

It is certainly a great asset to have this building in central Paris with a strong architectural presence and which, like it or loathe it, generates reactions and contributes to the attractiveness of the neighbourhood. Many galleries set up shop in the Beaubourg district after the arrival of the Centre Pompidou in 1977. The unveiling of the Pinault Collection in 2021 at the Bourse de Commerce, and the Cartier Foundation for contemporary art in November 2025 at the Palais-Royal, also enrich the area’s dynamism in the broadest sense.

This iconic architecture, combined with a unique collection, makes the site a symbol of cultural modernity. To reach out to all audiences, it is essential to cross-pollinate in the events on offer. Recently, the Suzanne Valadon exhibition attracted audiences perhaps more accustomed to the Musée d‘Orsay, and who may have felt the Centre Pompidou wasn’t for them, considering it too “modern”. And conversely, the closing exhibition with the work of Wolfgang Tillmans, which is resolutely contemporary, attracted broad interest. 

As part of the 2030 project, we are developing a new-generation unit for families, school outings, children and teenagers. Teens don’t necessarily want to visit exhibitions, but frequenting the premises, for whatever reason, builds up a certain attachment and they will naturally return, perhaps for a more engaging experience in the future. 

The Centre Pompidou is a living space, open to all, a moviment as Francis Ponge defined it.

Find out more about the Centre Pompidou 2030 Redeployment Project or keep up with the schedule of events at the Centre Pompidou