LAND(ES) ART 40: The ADOUR

A JOINT PROJECT TO THE COLLEGES OF TARTAS AND SAINT-SEVER

How was born this project?

This teaching project which associates the visual arts, photography and new technologies related to three classes of 3° of Tartas and three classes of 3° of Saint-Sever (either, 139 pupils on the whole). It is the result of a double desire:

that to develop at the pupils a significant glance on their inheritance, their close environment: the landscape landais and more particularly Adour, locates identity commun run with the whole of the pupils;

that to make enter Art to the College. Thus works of the Land Art, signed by major artists such LONG Richard, Refusals OPPENHEIM and Hamish FULTON, were lent by the FRAC Aquitaine and were exposed a fifteen or so days in the colleges of Tartas then of Saint-Sever. In addition, this project profited from the intervention of the photographer-plastics technician Jean HINCKER, artist generous, always ready to share its competences with the young generations and to make them live an authentic artistic experiment.

In their turn, the pupils, whose creativity was thus stimulated, were put in situation to produce photographic and infographic work.

The meeting of the productions of the two establishments within a collective exposure was essential right from the start project like a result impossible to circumvent.


The exposure, itinerant, was held:
- with the media library of Pontonx, from 3/31/09 to 4/18/09

- then, with the Gallery of Arts of Saint-Sever, from 5/26/09 to 6/7/09



The ADOUR: BANKS, DERIVED AND DAYDREAMS

Two key periods punctuated the project:

The walk-catch of sights organized with the autumn 2008, on banks of Adour (in Pontonx and Saint-Sever): during one half-day, each class of 3° profited from the councils of Jean HINCKER as regards catch of sight (framings, plans, point of view…); each one impregnated atmosphere characteristic of this territory between ground and water and reacted according to its own sensitivity.

Work infographic: the pupils were initiated by Jean HINCKER with the work of final improvement of images with the software Photoshop (intervention between 2 and 3 hours), since the basic tools (contrast; luminosity; colors; adjustment of the blur and the Net; realignment…) to the more advanced tools (copies; duplication…).

The pupils were brought to adapt this tool through two working tracks:

- the first is entitled “Ode in Adour”: the objective was to carry a singular glance to emphasize a characteristic of the landscape;

- the second, “oneiric Adour”: the objective aimed at revealing, to reinvent the landscape by a plastic, poetic and significant appropriation.

Corinne COUNTER, professor of visual arts to the college of Tartas
Patricia LAFFARGUE, professor of visual arts to the college of Saint-Sever