Roland Mousquès, Créations de pierres empilées / Creations of stacked stones

this image, probably made by Roland Mousqués, as published
on Facebook

Vialas is a municipality with currently some 500 inhabitants, located in the Cevennes area in the Lozère department in southern France. 

Unlike in earlier timess, most municipalities in the Cevennes area no longer have a declining population. Also in Vialas, the number of inhabitants, permanent residents and owners of a single-family home, is fairly stable.

A special feature of Vialas, seen from the perspective of this weblog, is that walls along the public road have been decorated with creations as those depicted in the surrounding images.

this image and the next four, in all probabilty made by 

Roland Mousques,as published on Facebook by Mimi San

Life and works

These decorations were made by Roland Mousquès (1940-2018), who was born and grew up in Paris. 

In May 1968, during the student revolt, he fled Paris and went to live in the Cévennes, initially in a hippie community in Polimies, but soon he found his own home in a former farmhouse in Figuerolles, a hamlet in the Vialas region.

Once settled in Figuerolles, he began a career as a mason. He found work restoring old farmhouses, and, interested as he was in old traditions and heritage, he treated them with care. 

Practicing this profession, he also became involved in the restoration of the old Bonijol mill in Figuerolles.

Around 1970 he also began to engage himself in the sphere of artistic activities.

He had a passion for a very specific form of art, namaley stacking stones in such a way that an artistic creation emerged.

The artworks formed by stacked stones, resulting in walls with, for example, undulating granite snakes, all kinds of heads, rising pillars, as seen in the images around, attracted the attention of passers-by and motorists.

Mousques is not only one of several French specialists in drywall-construction, he is also one of the founders of the Association ABPS (Association des Bâtisseurs en Pierre Sèche), France's drywall association, founded in the early 2000s.

Drywall construction is a technique for stacking irregular stones without using any binding agent, such as cement.

The revival of this approach in the Cévennes in the 1970s and 1980s, was a significant contribution to preserving and beautifying the landscape.

Roland Mousqués passed away on November 14, 2018.

Documentations

* Website of the association ABPS

* Article (2013) about Roland Mesquès on the website Stine-Ideas, with a series of images

* Article (2018) at the occasion of the death of Roland Mesquès

Other French sites with stacked stones in this weblog

* Michel Rousseau, The lost stone garden

* René Morice, Alignments of stone strctures

* Auguste Bourgoin, Public ruins end of the century

Roland Mousques

Creations of stacked stones

Figueirolles, 48220 Vialas, dept Lozère, region Occitanie, France.

creations can be seen from the road

Miroslav Stránský, Sochy v lese a výtvory podél pohádkového potoka / Sculptures in a forest and creations along a fairy stream

this picture and the next five courtesy of Pavel Konečný 

Havlíčkova Borová is a picturesque village with 950 inhabitants, located in the center of the Czech Republic in the border area of ​​the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands.

Life and works:

In this village lives Miroslav Stránský, who has become known because he created a rather special art environment. 

He was born in 1949 and trained as a bricklayer, but worked as a forest worker for most of his working life.

Once retired he had a lot of free time, which he mainly filled with making wooden sculptures. Around  2020 he made a special creation along a stream with moving mini-sculptures.

The wooden sculptures he makes are not placed near his home, but are situated in the forests and meadows near the village and many creations have also found a place in the gardens of inhabitants of the village.

The surrounding images give a good impression of what the creations look like. They are about as tall as adult humans and are made from pieces of wooden planks, tree trunks and other wooden material that is  suitable for being transformed into a creation.

Stránský doesn't paint his sculptures once ready, nor are they treated with a protective liquid. So they are rather vulnerable and will eventually be lost, as happened for example with the wooden sculptures of Frank Bruce in Scotland.

The image above shows one of the last sculptures made by Stránský. It is a creation in memory of his best friend, the hunting warden Pepík Smejkal. 

Local hunters consider this work as a memorial monument that can also be used to commemorate others and so they feel free to add their names. 

A wooden statue of a woodcutter stands to the right of the monument. The person on the left is Miroslav Stránský.

Pohádkový potůček / A fairy stream

Around 2020 Stránský started a new, special project. On a spot north of Havlíčkova Borová, where a stream is flowing along a local road, he added  to the stream's banks several miniature scenes with a fairy-tale character.

this image and the next three courtesy of Justyna Orlovska, 
from her website Off the Beaten Track

The miniature wooden houses are inhabited by miniature characters that can be associated with all sorts of Czech fairy tale figures.

A surprising feature of these figures is that they can make movements, which is realized by means of a paddle wheel hanging in the flowing stream.

Due to the fragile nature of the mobile creation, Stránský pays a lot of attention to regular maintenance. 

Scenes with all kinds of characters moving on flowing water are rare in the field of art environments. In this weblog there is an article about Vincent Navratil, who made such a creation in the community of Vir, also located in the Czech Republic

Documentation

* Article (April 2024) by Justyna Orlovska about the fairy stream, on her website Off the Beaten Track,

with a variety of photos

* Article (July 2024) about the memorial sculpture, in the magazine  of  radio Český rozhlas Vysočina

* Article (June 2024) about the creations along the fairy stream, in  the magazine of Rádio Střední Čechy, with a variety of photos

* Photo series (2023/2024) of the fairy stream, on the website Mapy.CZ

Video

* Video (April 2024, YouTube, 3'08") by Justyna Orlovska showing the moving parts of  the creation

Miroslav Stránský

Sculptures in a forest and creations along a fairy stream

Havlíčkova Borová, region Vysočina, Czech Republic

all elements of this art environment are situated 

in the open air, accessible to visitors

Emilio Fossati, Il Tombone de Piotello / The Tombone of Piotello

images are screenprints from the first video
in the documentation

Formerly an independent municipality, Limito currently is a district in the south of Piotello, a municipality with around 32,000 inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy. 

Along the southern border of the buildings in the Limito district there is a piece of land wedged between a four-lane highway and a row of houses along the Via Fabrizio de André.

For many years this area was abandoned and neglected land, used to dump waste, until in 2016 Emilio Fossati, a resident of the Limito district, decided to start renovating it. 

Fossati was an unmarried man, at that time in his early sixties and retired, and what he was about to do was at his own expense and completely selfless. 

The project would take seven years of hard work, but it resulted in a freely accessible, beautiful walking area, full of shrubs, trees and benches and also equipped with colorful decorations.

Let's take a look.

The very first image shows a sign showing the location and name of the site: Limito Localita and Il Tombonen, also known as El Tümbüm. 

A tombone is a large concrete pipe that is used to allow water from a stream or creek to flow through a dam which one wants to use to cross that stream or creek. 

 

The two images above show a stream running along the site. This stream, called Calchera stream, separates the site from the southernmost street of Piotello.

One of Fossati's major projects was deepening and repairing the walls of the stream. The walls along which the stream ran consisted of masonry stones, which Fossati renovated or supplemented with stones from old houses or farms that were demolished. 

Deepening the stream was also quite a job. Its bottom was covered with a large number of small pebbles, which he partly replaced or removed to allow a better flowing of the water.

Furthermore, the access bridge was also redesigned, and -as shown in the image above- this bridge was also provided with two decorations.

Such decorative elements have been added to more parts of the site, such as the restored walls of the stream, that were provided with paintings on various spots, or the top of such a wall that was decorated with a sculpture.

The image of Christ on the cross below is part of an ensemble of creations near a bench made by Fossati.

It is not an extensive collection of artworks, but what can be seen indicates that, in addition to restoring the site, Fossati also had an eye for adding decorative elements, which resulted in the creation of a small-scale art environment.

The site as a whole was also tackled by constructing paths, adding seating facilities, planting flowers and shrubs and the organizing and regular maintenance of trees and shrubs.

In this way, in seven years and thousands of hours of work, a neglected area was transformed into a small oasis and a small-scale art environment.

In December 2019 Fossati was honored by a Certificate of Merit from the municipality.

To conclude this post, here is the translation into English of the text on a billboard along one of the site's paths

The View of Desires

Take a look,

first look at the passage

then, close your eyes

for a moment

and express

your wish.

Good luck

Documentation

* Article (October 2023) in newspaper Prima Lamartesana

* Article (October 2023) in newspaper OHGA

* Article (January 2020) in Lista per Piotello, about the presentation of the Certificate of Merit, with various illustrations

Videos

* Video (2'07", YouTube, October 2023) by Prima la Martesana

* Video (9'27", YouTube, August 2023) by Thomas Fox

Emilio Fossati,

Il Tombone de Piotello

Entrance along the Via Fabrizio de André 

Piotello, dept Metropolitan City of Milan, region Lombardy, Italy

the site can be visited freely by the public

Google Streetview, with a variety of photos

Čičmany, Vyzdobená dedina / Decorated village

this picture, by PMATAS, licensed under 

Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0 International

Unlike the colorful frescoes painted on the houses of the Polish village Zalipie, the houses of the Slovakian village Čičmany have a decoration of white ornaments, usually geometric in nature and sometimes with schematic realistic motives, such as depictions of birds and other animals.

The village dates back to 1272 and has about 200 inhabitants, who mostly live in black wooden half-timbered houses with ridge roofs.

this picture and the next five courtesy of

Sophie Lepetit, from her weblog

The tradition of decorating the houses started in the early 1800s. 

The village is located in a swampy area and to protect their house from humidity the inhabitants initially decorated the corners with mud, which later changed to the use of white lime, which also was added to other parts of the outside walls.

White lime on a mostly dark background is of course striking and residents, mainly women, started to make decorations of the white lime, in which it is remarkable that gradually a more or less uniform style was developed.

In 1921 the village was hit by a major fire. Many houses had to be repaired. 

The Slovak government arranged for funds to be made available for this recovery. This allowed Čičmany to keep the character it had for ages.

In 1977 a government decision was made to the effect that the decorated houses and buildings were designated as cultural heritage.  

In this way 136 houses and buildings got a protected status and became  part of the world's first folk architecture reserve.

In Čičmany two houses, which also function as a museum,  can be visited. 

The Radenov house, one of the best preserved houses, has a general exhibition. It's open all year.

The other one is the neighboring Gregorov house, which has an ethnographic exhibition on history and folklore of Čičmany and its surroundings.

The decorations that appear on the houses in Čičmany are quite original. 

They can be seen in embroidery in costumes worn by residents, but also in images on tablecloths and other forms of textiles.

Inhabitants of the village focused for a while on making handkerchiefs decorated with motifs such as on the houses, later they also started making felt boots, with applications based on these motifs.

Documentation

* Article on the website of Atlas Obscura, with a series of pictures

* Article on the touristic website Travel to Slovakia

* Article on Turisticky, another touristic website 

* Article on the website Itinari

Videos

* Video (14'29", March 2015, YouTube) by Milan Kosec

* Short video (1'23", November 2014, YouTube) by Travelers Videos

* To see more videos about Čičmany on YouTube, click here

Decorated village of Čičmany 

Žilina region, Slovakia

decorated houses can be seen from the street

Niko Nordström, Puuveistokset pisteviivat ympäri kaupunkia / Wooden sculptures dotted around the city

sculpture of a toucan
this image and the next three
from the municipal website about the sculptures

Created by an employee of the municipality of Kauniainen, a city of some 10,000 inhabitants in the south of Finland, dozens of wooden sculptures decorate the city's public space.

In the field of art environments such a number of identical sculptures (in this case in terms of basic material and method of processing) can be referred to as a scattered art environment, a description that refers to the totality of related creations located in a rather extensive territory near the artist's living place.

\

 sculpture of a sfinx

Life and works

Born into a family living in Kauniainen, Niko Nordström in 2005 became an employee of the municipal maintenance company, an organization that takes care of such activities as clearing snow, but also keeping in order the parks and landscaping, as well as the trees and woodlands in the municipality.

In that job he also had to work with a circular saw and in the process he became familiar with various sawing techniques. 

In Finland making creations with the circular saw is a much practiced activity, even by people without an artistic training, and so Nordström set to work, making his first sawn-out wooden creation in 2009, which became a gift for one of his friends.

Although Nordström in his spare time liked to be active in running and cycling, he apparently enjoyed making wooden sculptures so much that he wanted to add another activity to the use of his free time, namely making sculptures of trees that had to be cut down by the municipal organization he worked for. 

sculpture of a falcon

The local authorities thought it was a good idea and agreed. 

In Kauniainen the municipal maintenance company only cuts down trees that are in poor condition. It is known that leaving parts of felled trees behind is useful for nature, but doing so sometimes comes up against a lack of understanding from local residents, who think these left parts just form a mess. The remains of a tree in the form of a sculpture, on the other hand, are appreciated positively by a large majority of residents.

With these kinds of considerations in the background, in 2010 Nordström's project started. It was successful, both in terms of the number of sculptures made, some eighty sculptures in ten years, and in terms of the outspoken positive appreciation of the residents.

In terms of theme, the sculptures depict various animals, as the images in this post show. But there are also other subjects, for example if a well-known building has stood in the area or if there is a memory of a famous person. 

Nordström also asks his colleagues for suggestions on the subject of a new sculpture. And if no idea has arisen within six months, then the agreement is that the stump will be removed.

In 2014 Nordström received the Environmental Performance of the Year award for his creations and in December 2020 the city published a webpage with a series of photos of the sculptures and a map of the city with indications of the spots where they are located (see documentation).

sculpture of a turtle

To situate Nordström's artwork in the context of other scattered art environments, here are some references to comparable sites.

Very similar is Dmitry Tanchev from Aleksin, Russia, who transformed trees in a forest near his hometown into sculptures.This also applies to Valery Gavrilov who decorated the Foresters Park in Yekaterinburg, Russia, with a series of wooden sculptures. And then, Pierre Rapeau from the Dordogne area in France, who decorated parts of trees with frescoes, also had a forest as his field of work.

Working with shells, Danielle Aubin, France, decorated houses and walls with mosaic in the district where she lived and in the 19th century, François Michaud, also from France, made granite sculptures, which were set up in various locations in his village.

Documentation

* Webpage (in English) by the municipality of Kauniainen with a serie of pictures and a map of the city with the locations of the sculptures 

* Article (May 2018) in local newspaper Kaunis Grani

* Article (February 2020) in newspaper Ilta-Sanomat

Niko Nordström

Wooden sculptures dotted around the city

Kauniainen,  Uusimaa, region Southern Finland

sculptures can be seen from the street

Vesa Väänänen, Puistossa on rautaveistoksia / Park with iron sculptures

picture by the city of Heinola

Above image shows an iron sculpture of a colorful character against a background formed by a park landscape with many more of such sculptures. The were displayed in the Dork Park in the Finnish city of Heinola, some 140 km north-east of Helsinki, until they were removed to the city of Joursa in October 2024.

Life and work

Väänänen, who was born in 1949,  worked as a sheet metal worker and as a gardener until he became unemployed in the 1990s due to economic developments.

this picture and the next four courtesy
of Antii Kastén, from his website

He lived in a former railway house on the edge of the Dork Park in the eastern part of Heinola, also called the Railway Park, because it is adjacent to the railway, which was used for passenger traffic until 1968.

As a sheet metal worker he occasionally made sheet iron creations that got a place in his house, but when he was unemployed for a while, he decided in 2001 to work more systematically on this.

It became a project that would keep him busy for years to come. In 2020 Väänänen  had created more than a hundred sculptures, which he had situated in an open area of Dork park near the house where he lived and had installed his workshop. 

In the course of the following years this park area got filled with predominantly small-scale creations that Väänänen made from all kinds of iron residual material, such as the metal casings of kitchen geysers as in the picture above.

The owner of the park (maybe the railway company) may have had other plans regarding the further development of the area, but these ideas apparently were not very concrete and so the sculpture park was tolerated for the time being, a situation that has existed for many years. 

However, this situation of tolerance has changed, as will be seen at the end of this article.

As to the nature of his work, in 2016 Väänänen himself has remarked: Yleensä käytän töissäni myös huumoria, ironiaa ja farssia (Usually I also use humor, irony and farce in my work).

Indeed, this is recognized in reviews of the site included in the documentation below, where it is often noted that Väänänen's sculptures are cheerful and funny in nature. 

They made the visitor smile, which may also be partly due to the humorous character of the captions placed on plates next to the sculptures, such as the one in the photo at the very top, which reads: The miracle of growing teenage mustache.

This artwork was also characterized by the way in which the processed metal base material in the design by Väänänen suddenly takes on a completely different appearance once incorporated into the creation, such as the casings of kitchen geysers that magically become human characters who -sitting at a table- enjoy some food.

The same goes for the items used in the creation pictured below and in a lot of other creations..

New developments because of a fire in the park

In mid-December 2020, it was reported in the local press that a fire that had hit Väänänen's house, had rendered the property uninhabitable. Väänänen was injured, but was soon able to leave the hospital.

The question now arose as to how to proceed with the exhibition of sculptures in an area owned by an association that tolerated their use for years, but now retained the right to use the area for other purposes.

Consultations about a solution  -such as eventually another location for the sculptures- started, talks in which the municipality also was involved. 

In April 2021, a Finnish daily newspaper reported that a holding company had been formed that owned the site and that the second shareholder in size -Apulanta- had reported that they were also participating in this holding company to protect Väänänen's sculptures.

The final resolution came in October 2024. Newspapers reported that Vesa Väänänen’s artworks were moved from Dorki Park to the city of Joutsa, this with his consent. They are being cared for at the Haihatus Art Center and Residency, a non-profit organization run by volunteers, with support from local artists.

the little elephant above is now alone; 

a pink-colored piglet standing opposite him has been stolen

Documentation

* Article  on website ITE-taide

* Article (August 2020) on website Ajatusmatkalla, with a series of pictures

* Entry (July 2020) on weblog Marjoin Matkassa, also with a series of pictures

* Entry (August 2013) on weblog Tellunkonstanelamaa, once more with a series of photos

* Review of the site (November 2011) by Erkki Pirtola on website Voima

* Article (July 2009) on website Suomi Tour, with a series of photos

first published March 2021, last revised October 2024

Vesa Väänänen 

Iron sculptures in Dorkin Park

Ratakatu 20 

Heinola, Päijät Hame, region Southern Finland, Finland 

sculptures were located in the park until October 2024, when they were removed to:

Haihatus Art Center and Residency

Joutsa, dept Central-Finland, region Western and Central Finland, Finland

,

Emmanuel Cometto, Sculptures de bois flotté / Sculptures of driftwood

pictures (2018) courtesy of Dominique Clément

from his weblog Herault Insolite 

Mourèze is a small community of almost 200 inhabitants in the south of France, some 50 km west of Montpellier. It is known for the nearby nature reserve Cirque de Morèze. a mountainous area with high-rising rock formations.

And in the field of at environments the village is known for sculptures of driftwood, placed in public space.

Life and works

These creations were made by Emmanuel Cometto and were arranged in front of and in the vicinity of his home/studio Atmosterre, on the Place des Palabres.

Comettto was born in 1968 in the town of Thionville in the Moselle area, northern France. Initially he had jobs in a technical sphere, such as joiner, construction worker or welder in the aviation industry. But from an early age he also was someone who could live in imaginary worlds and liked making drawings, ceramics or sculptures.

In 1995, meanwhile married, he moved with his wife and a daughter from northern France to Corsica, where the family settled in  the small community of Lugo di Venaco in the center of the island. 

Venaco is not far from Corte, the former capital of the isle, where Thierry Léonelli has a well known pottery workshop. Soon Cometto got a regular job in this pottery, where he could further develop in the manufacture and glazing of ceramics.

In the summer of 2001 Cometto and his family (meanwhile also a son was born) moved to Mourèze, where Cometto installed his own home annex studio, named Atmosterre. 

From the moment he settled here, Cometto has developed into a versatile artist and carpenter of craft items.

He made remarkable technical devices (such as a shoe with a built-in radiator, a flying broom -long before Harry Potter- or a musical flying saucer), graphic work (such as business posters and illustrations for books), ceramics (such as plates and bowls, including special ones for a star restaurant in London) and wooden structures (such as large tree houses and wooden cabins, but also wooden composters, not only for household use, but also for installation in residential areas in the region, these marketed via Divesterram ). 

Creations from driftwood

A rather unique aspect of Cometto's creative activity is the collection of sculptures he made of driftwood, a way of working he started around 2015. and continued for a number of years.He finds his material along riverbanks or on the beach along the Mediterranean and, as he says, he is 

".... using it as it is, without sculpting or even cutting it ... I observe the shapes and colors and put together what goes well, a bit like a puzzle ... I harvest these woods that are precious to me in the lake or by the sea. The woods are all rounded and very solid, which gives sculptures (even large ones) the ability to stay outdoors".

These creative activities in arranging drift wood in such a way that more or less recognizable persons and animals emerge, have resulted in a large number of sculptures, small ones, but also large ones of some meters high. 

Visitors could see a guitar player, a mermaid from a chestnut root, a some meters high giraffe and all kinds of other larger and smaller animals, a little hunter from the cro-magnon era, a two meters high Masai man and woman, and so on. 

Cometto's studio, in the basement of the house, could not store such a large number, and so the sculptures found a place on the square near the house and probably in the adjacent streets.

Although the display of the sculptures in every respect resembles an art environment, it was probably not a conscious choice by Cometto to make such a spatial creation, but it rather was a practical necessity.

With regard to the qualification art environment, however, it should be noted that the sculptures are in principle intended for sale and so the collection may have a variable character in the event of items being sold.

All this makes no difference to the appreciation people who visit Morèze have for the creations; in general, they take great pleasure in viewing them.

Documentation

* Emmanuel Commeto's website
* Commeto's account on Facebook
* Entry (June 2018) by Dominique Clément on his weblog Herault Insolite, with pictures
* Article (June 2005) by Fabienne Chetrit on her weblog
* Pictures on Picuki, here, here and here
* Entries on Crapahut weblog, here and here, with pictures

Emmanuel Cometto 

sculptures from driftwood around his studio Atmosterre
4 Place des Palabres
Mourèze, dept Hérault, region Occitanie, France
sculptures can be seen on the street

Joël Bast, Présences / Presences

this picture and the next two: screenprints from a video (2017) 

by Lilian Bathelot, published here in agreement with the maker

The group of people in the photo above is not just a collection of people. On closer inspection this turns out to be a collection of sculptures assembled together as a group of spectators at some event.

These sculptures have been made by the French self-taught artist Joël Bast, who -since he began creating them- lived and worked in the midst of his creations.

Life and works

Joël Bast is the artist name of Joël Bastard (April 1951-November 2, 2021).  

On the internet almost nothing can be found about the first decades of his life. In the 1990s he was a self-taught sculptor who worked in wood and stone.

The story begins in 2000 when Bast decided to stop working in wood and stone, and to start creating life-size personalities made from hexagonal chicken mesh and papier-mâché.

Around the same time a new art festival started in the community of Banne, a small characteristic village in the southern Ardèche area. The yearly festival was entitled Bann'Art, festival d'art singulier, art d'aujourd'hui (Bann'Art, festival of singular and contemporary art).

Bast participated in this Festival with his sculptures, which he referred to as Présences. In July 2016 he was interviewed at the Festival site by Jeanine Rivais, a well known French author about singular art.

Bast owned a small, colorfully painted caravan, with which he, with a number of sculptures, could travel to art festivals. There is a report about a trip he made in 2007 to Montmartre, Paris, where he placed his sculptures on sidewalks, benches and other places in the public space, just in the midst of the passing public.

In 2009 Bast settled in the city of Séte, a port and a seaside resort on the Mediterranean in the Hérault department, where he (and his sculptures) got room in a building belonging to the municipality. 

Here he continued to work on expanding his collective of sculptures, took part in local art events and put his présences not only on his balcony along the street, but in all kinds of public places in the city.

picture via IDHeraultTV (around 2016) 

of a mermaid in Séte's harbour

In 2016, when Bast had completed some 140 sculptures of personalities, the city informed him that the building where he stayed, was needed for other purposes and he was asked to look for another place.

A petition to find a solution for Bast so he could stay in Séte, signed by some 700 inhabitants of the city, did not change the local authorities' mind and he had to look for another place for himself and his extensive collection of 140 Présences.

After some wanderings, Bast was welcomed by the mayor of the municipality of Grabels, 35 km north-east of Séte, who, in consultation with the city council, offered him living space and a workshop in the Chateau de Grabels, which was bought by the municipality in 2015.

this picture and the next two courtesy of 
Sophie Lepetit, from her weblog

The castle is surrounded by a park, where Bast found space to set up his sculptures, as the photo above shows. At the same time, the sculptures formed such a part of everyday life that they were also present in the kitchen, as can be seen in the picture below.

More about "Présences"

The French word précense reads in English presence, and refers to the situation that something or someone is in a certain place. The plural therefore relates to a number of people, or in this case sculptures, who are in a certain place or situation. With regard to Bast's creations that situation best can be indicated by "normality" or "everydayness".

Just as the material that Bast used to manufacture his sculptures is rather simple -chicken wire and papier-mâché from old newspapers- the sculptures are a collective of ordinary people engaged with their daily activities. Including young and old, male and female, all with a variety of cultural backgrounds, the collective is a model of mutual tolerance in daily practice.

Some sculptures have been part of the collective for over fifteen years and became trusted company for Bast. Some of them stayed indoors, as if they belonged to the family, a situation that can be found more often in the field of art environments, such as with Bogdan Ziętek from Poland, or Valery Ermakov from Ukraine. Some stayed in the park, or have been scattered around in the community. 

Bast wouldn't sell sculptures that were part of the collective. By exception he was willing to make a sculpture on order, but preferably the collective came first.

Joël Bast passed away on November 2, 2021

Documentation

* Website Les Présences (with a large variety of photos)

* Interview (2006) by Jeanine Rivais, published on her website

* Sylvie Veyrunes and Joel Bast, Présences, 2010 (a photo book)
* Article (2016) by Jeanine Rivais, published on her website
* Article (2017) by Fabienne Durand, published on her weblog
* Article (2017) by Virginie Moreau in Hérault Juridique et Economique
* Entries (2017)  on the weblog of Sophie Lepetit (with a series of pictures), here and here

Videos 
* Video Présence des Présences  (2'33", Vimeo, 2017) by Lilian Bathelot

* Video by Ophelia Film  (9'43", November 2013, YouTube)

Joël Bast

Les présences

Chateau de Grabels

Grabels, dept Hérault, region Occitanie, France

the park around the castle can be visited by the public

visits of the interior only on appointment