Urban Scenography : Pont-Saint-Esprit

The project is based on the so called affair ‘du pain maudit’ a real-life which takes place in 1951 and marks the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit which knows an unprecedented poisoning ! What is the origin of this poisoning ? The ergot. Interned inhabitants, deaths, an investigation, a trial, an unclarified affair. . .

The project was imagined as an itinerary between installations in the urban space which aim at modifying the sensitive perception of the city according to various processes. The goal of the route is the Hotel-Dieu, the old home and hospital, today closed down and for which a reallocation is proposed.

The Wash House 

The architectural qualities of the wash house are emphasized by an image painted in anamorphosis that invites to ponder about it. While moving in the space the visitor but also actor is constructing and deconstructing the picture under his eyes. At that time, in the absence of serious proofs, the water had also been suspected to be at the origin of the poisonings.

Frédéric Joliot Curie Street

In the old shopping street a lot of shops are closed and the signs of the period seem motionless in time. The device suggests projecting image of the storekeepers of the period on the shop window whereas a system of video surveillance filming the visitors walking in the street, the images filmed are transfered to another video projection and are superimposed to the first image. The visitor think of seeing his reflection in the window but actually it’s his filmed image which build itself in the empty space of the given up shop.

The Square Saint-Pierre

The principle of the ‘double camera-obscura’ will show the square differently. The visitors are brought to live an immersive and contemplative experience. A hybrid image of both religious
architectures appears on the tense cloth in the center of the ‘black box’. The envelope of the ‘black box’ is realized in a wooden bardage, by using recycled breadboards, that integrates the signalling of the installation.

The Citadel

The device is placed in the front of the entry of the Citadel along the Rhône. Some elements are calling out to the visitors. The device highlights that the architecture is built along the Rhône and nevertheless it’s a blind architecture. The element makes sens with the presence of other visitors inside the Citadel. By pronouncing some words in this strange ‘megaphone’ the visitor is
talking to unknowns people on the other side of walls.