NANTES, France
The art festival Estuaire in Nantes invited Obervatorium to make a permanent public artwork for a protected nature reserve in the middle of the city: la petite Amazonie. What can public art do for plants, citizens and birds?
ESTUAIRE 2007.2009.2012
Estuaire Nantes <> Saint-Nazaire is an artistic overland trail and a collection of installations in the open air. From Nantes to St Nazaire the Estuaire programme invites artists, architects and designers from all over the world to take over a site from anywhere along the estuary. Since 2007 around 16 artworks have been installed along the river Loire : a house suspended 15m up, a 7m pendulum swinging on the side of an old cement works by Signer, a 40m snake by Durham a garden on the roof of a submarine base by Clément, an observation tower in the middle of a marsh by Kawamata and the now famous rings by Buren in the port of Nantes.
Ambition/Idea
La Petite Amazonie is a glorious accident. Everybody visiting the site is overwhelmed by the richness of the natural environment and by the story of origin. 'Once upon a time there was mayor wanted to build a highway in the middle of the city...' Now it is on the European list of best wildlife areas. The enclave of natural processes in the center of Nantes is well protected and tamed by railway tracks. The gate of Petite Amazonie however, is very near urban development upgrading of former industrial zones. Where La Petite Amazonie and La Grande Kakafonie meet, one should feel the tension between the dynamics of flora, fauna and homo sapiens. A listed bird's santuary in a unique marshland, all because of a highway that never came; this story of the nature-culture-paradox, is so good, you could tell it over and over. The Sculpture on site
The sculpture is a construction and a process: a 25 meter extension of the once planned highway and alongside the expansion of the existing wilderness by 25 meter.
location: Nantes, France
year:2012
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