The “600 °” exhibition in Sabers in the Landes brings together photos and videos of artists from the Bordeaux collective Les Associés

PAnyway of 30,000 hectares of destroyed forest, 45,000 people evacuated, 4,597 French and foreign firefighters mobilized. Almost three years after the extraordinary fires of Landiras and the Teste-de-Buch, on the border of the Landes and the Gironde, what remains of these two devastating months, where the smell of disaster floated in the air? Disfigured landscapes. Trauma. And a step back after amazement.

This is in any case what the exhibition “600 °” invites – average temperature of the soil measured during fires -, project of the Bordeaux collective Les Associés. The work of the six photographers and two directors is visible at the Marquèze pavilion, in Sabers, until September 28, 2025.

The choice of this place of exhibition, in the heart of the Landes de Gascogne Regional Natural Park, is no coincidence. “Offering the exhibition here, it makes sense,” emphasizes Joël Peyrou, one of the collective photographers. It is at the heart of the Landes, in rurality, it is a place that attracts a very large audience, not an audience of art center. The challenge is to be questioning but accessible. »»

At the end of two weeks of installation work, the 325 square meters of the pavilion were transformed into a sample of this burned land. “The fires represent 923,000 times this surface,” said another partner, Alexandre Dupeyron, who, among other things, took care of the scenography.

The “600 °” project started in September 2022. The artists spent two years in immersion in the territory of the fires, just after the fires. “The sooner we were in the news, it was not our work,” says Joël Peyrou. That of journalists from “South West” is visible on a wall of the exhibition, lined with 80s of Girondines editions from July 12 to September 29, 2022. The fires are omnipresent. “We wanted to show the place that these fires have had and highlight the difficulty in taking a step back from the news,” explains the photographer.

For its part, the collective wanted to “draw the sons from the questioning”: “What interests us is the analysis of the causes and the reflection on the continuation. How do you do it so that it does not happen again, how do we live more intelligently with that? What is our relationship with living things, forest, how to live it, to consider it? How to reconcile private forest and societal needs? There are a whole bunch of needs and expectations with regard to the forest, and all of this dialogues very badly. »»

Nature resumes its rights

Documentary but also symbolic or poetic photographs, video, sound, testimonies, the diversity of artistic practices on display echoes the complexity of issues. “In the collective, we all have different sensitivities. There are documentary photographs and others more plastic or conceptual, underlines Joël Peyrou. This gives a mosaic of representations. The diversity of points of view is the key to this exhibition. »»

“The diversity of points of view is the key to this exhibition”

Large prints at the entrance to the pavilion hang on. “It’s drone photo,” lights up Joël Peyrou. Through the shooting, it is believed that the trees are standing while they are lying on Lake Hostens. We already have a duality of looks. »»

The charred objects collected on site, the photos taken by the victims, the agents of the National Forest Office or the members of the DFCI (Defense of the Forests against Fires) reflect the desolation. When other black and white prints show the rebirth of the plant. “In fact, it is a transformation, summarizes the artist. We realize that nature resumes its rights and that a new landscape is coming. We see the heath of Félix Arnaudin reappear. »»

The exhibition also feeds on testimonies collected during 80 hours of interviews conducted with mayors of villages, farmers, families living in this field of ash. “We wanted to understand a territory and welcome the words of inhabitants, who are traumatized for some,” says Joël Peyrou. These two months were long, uncertain, difficult. What we understood is that there are different visions of the forest and that they compete more than they exchange. »»

In the small room in the pavilion, different approaches are highlighted, like so many points of view that dialogue. “There is black and white, photos in the bedroom, draws with a color dichromate, which is an old process. »A series of photos of charred objects attracts the look. “It is very revealing of the anthropocene. The fire ravages a forest but leaves what the man himself has left: pieces of plastic and scrap. »»

A huge calcined lump sits in the middle of the room. The work is signed Alexandre Dupeyron. “It is a pine of the Gemmée forest of the Teste,” he explains. The whole vascular system of the trees being asked, their heart was filled with resin. They consumed in their center, like candles, explains the artist. This sculpture is a bit of the expression of my inability to photograph this forest, because we are in front of a battlefield, in the face of nothingness. This is where this idea came to me: to make an eternal trace of this disaster. »»

For this, Alexandre Dupeyron sank into the heart of the lump about 300 liters of refractory concrete, which resists fire. “Concrete and plant kingdom is the meeting of two worlds. I find that there is a duality between the symbol of life and that of death. There is a very strong allusion to this paradox inherent in fire, which also has a Promethean dimension. It was he who brought us knowledge, he is linked to emancipation. Hence the name of the work, ” Janus ”, from the name of the Roman god of transitions, but also beginnings and ends.

Here is delivered a sum of observations, of different visions of the forest, its uses, of the common good it constitutes. The visitor must compose with this great complexity of environmental and societal issues. “We offer tracks, it is not a dependent project,” sums up Joël Peyrou. We do not defend a production forest, we do not type on industry either. We are not in something sliced. We are there to arouse curiosity hoping to create the conditions for an intelligent debate. »»

The partners: Joël Peyrou, Alexandre Dupeyron, Elie Monferier, Michaël Parpet, Olivier Panier des Touches, Alban Dejong. Directors: Frédéric Corbion and Cyrille Latour.