Today, ecological approaches to art and nature are very varied. From raising awareness to militancy, representations of environmental issues are everywhere in art fairs and exhibitions. Through their work, artists try to raise public awareness to create a better world, putting humanity in harmony with the environment.
The Sud-Est Forum publication is attached to ideas that build ecological concepts, promoting the efforts of artists to fight for our common Home, the Earth. Sometimes painting, sculpture, photographs or artistic installations can be more convincing for the conscience of mankind than science, emotions and beauty being faster and more direct ways. In their attempt to reduce the gap between life and art, artists began to constantly collect details of reality, single objects, abandoned by civilization, remnants of natural material and many others.
The town of Evian in France is located on the shore of the largest lake in Western Europe, a body of water bordering Switzerland. The rivers that feed this lake called Léman or Geneva, bring many woods, branches or even whole tree trunks, natural materials that have been used in a vast artistic project, open to the public in December 2022, under the name „Exposition solidaire„, part of the winter festival „Le Fabulous Village des Flottins„.
„Fabulous Village” is an extraordinary cultural event that firmly takes the opposite view of mercantile Christmases. We enter a fantasy bubble where nothing is for sale, where everything is to dream and imagine! „Les Flottins” were born from the imagination of Alain Benzoni, director of the Théâtre de la Toupine and great lover of the mountains and Lake Geneva.
Thanks to the talent of self-taught sculptors or Fine Arts graduates, the wood from the mountains comes to life and turns into hundreds of characters of all sizes that are displayed on the streets of Evian. The recovery of various materials and their artistic recycling allow the creation of „parental propulsion carousels” (parents are the ones who activate the children’s interest in the sculpture workshops) as well as interactive games scattered throughout the city. And because in an ecologically ideal world, nothing is lost, everything is recovered, the driftwood statues are then placed in parks, gardens and city streets. Like so many pleas in favor of a circular „eco-friendly” art.
And thus over 350 tons of wood are transformed into 650 artistic pieces.
Photos by Lia Itani
©Lia Itani&Sud-Est Forum 2023