Limon and Conversations Littorales, Alix Delmas (La Mauvaise Réputation gallery), Estuaire de la Gironde, 2024-2025.
A series of photographs and a video by visual artist Alix Delmas present unique depictions of the natural environments along the Pointe du Médoc, situated at the confluence of the Gironde estuary and the ocean.
Limon recreates, in six images taken through a piece of gelatin, a walk through a wetland in Saint-Vivien du Médoc, amid sand, mud, and shells. “In the summer heat, on the shores of the Gironde between Saint-Vivien and Talais at high tide, this warm, humid, muddy environment appeared to me as a miniature landscape, reminiscent of equatorial forests crisscrossed by rivers. As I walked through this silt, fearing for my feet that they might encounter broken shells or sharp pebbles, I felt like a destructive giant whose every step could, in an instant, transform or destroy this calm micro-ecosystem.” Alix Delmas
Conversation Littorales draws an analogy between the ebb and flow of ocean tides and that of the Gironde River’s current, and the act of inhaling and exhaling. These captures of spaces in motion invite us to reflect on the breath. Conversations Littorales is the second of six cartes blanches presented by the Bordeaux gallery La Mauvaise Réputation throughout the exhibition period.
Terres alluviales. Matières d’estuaires, Fabrique teramaret (Esther Bapsalle, designer and colourist, Aurore Piettedesigner and teacher, Mélanie Bouissière, architect and ceramicist, Quentin Prost, architect and researcher) Garonne, Dordogne and the Gironde estuary / Bassin d’Arcachon, 2024-2025.
In response to the depletion of resources, the Terres alluviales research project is developing architectural elements made of raw and fired clay using locally harvested sediments. Alluvial soils coexist with two other elements that make up the landscapes of the Gironde region: oysters and vineyards, whose shell waste and vine cuttings complement the experiments in the production and application of earthen materials.
“In Gironde, the soils of the watersheds that make up the region, as rainwater runs off them, contribute to the formation of alluvial, clay-loam soils. These sediments and sedimentary flows shape, on one hand, the life of the estuary and its tributaries, the Garonne and Dordogne, and on the other, the Arcachon Basin and its Leyre Delta. In each of these cases, these flows are hybrid, stemming as much from so-called natural geological dynamics (silt plugs and other hydro-sedimentary processes) as from anthropogenic dynamics such as the dredging of sediments to maintain ports and navigation channels for commercial and recreational boaters. Considering these soil movements today in the production of raw earth and terracotta materials made from dredged sediments for architecture and design requires viewing them as “earth workers.” From the perspective of the shift toward the rights of nature, rivers, deltas, lagoons, and estuaries thus become legal entities that play an active role in a supply chain. Such a sector, imagined in this expanded sense—that is, no longer anthropocentric and based on a restricted economy, but ecocentric and oriented toward a general economy of life—uses this soil and these lands no longer as an inert and lucrative material but as a living resource interdependent with complex ecosystems that must be preserved. This is the path that the fabrique teramaret—the structured extension of the Terres alluviales research project—wishes to take.” Esther Bapsalle, Aurore Piette, Mélanie Bouissière et Quentin Prost
Relevés (Labouheyre, March 2017), 2017 and Midsummer Melody (Bordeaux, August 2022), 2025, Pierre-Lin Renié (La Mauvaise Réputation gallery).
“Reflecting on our shared earthly condition, a focus on the ground and the sky is a recurring theme in my work. Created for the exhibition Nouvelles saisons, self-portraits of a territory, the slideshow Midsummer Melody is an adaptation of a book I published in 2023. The photographs show a clear blue sky and carpets of fallen plane tree leaves in Bordeaux, in the middle of August—an unsettling glimpse of autumn in the heart of summer, caused by the successive heat waves that year. Created in Labouheyre in 2017 during a residency at the Maison de la Photographie des Landes, Relevés consists of 30 images taken by placing a scanner directly on the ground at six points evenly spaced along a line connecting the southern and northern ends of the town. With the scanner’s extreme precision, the series mimics a scientific document, though not without approximations. It belongs as much to the realm of fiction, where a tiny depression in the ground becomes an abyss.” Pierre-Lin Renié
Relevés Maison/Atelier, Pierre Labat, Bordeaux, 2025.
“Our relationship with the world (the physical, the tangible) is primarily our relationship with the ground,” asserts Pierre Labat, “that is where we touch it, where we become one with it.” Yet in our industrialized societies, that very ground is rarely visible, covered by various types of flooring: hardwood, tile, asphalt, or concrete. The artist documents these textures by pouring plaster directly onto the floor into frames made from clay edges. These floor casts, taken from his studio or home, possess an almost photographic quality. Their presentation on the wall is inspired by an installation of floor fragments at the museum of the Gallo-Roman villa in Plassac, north of the Gironde.
“The primary aim of the work presented in Nouvelles Saisons was to preserve, to ‘photograph’ the ground around me, which might disappear. To create a record (to capture the ground’s form in three dimensions). And the more I look at this work on arc en rêve's wall, the more I think about the question of footprints. A trace we leave behind in space. I am then reminded of the 2013 discovery of the Happisburgh footprints in England, dating back 800,000 years. The presence, in negative, of a movement through space. A piece of soil, extracted and preserved, ultimately becomes a movement that is possible (in space) and fictional (in time).” Pierre Labat
“The work begins with a “drawing” of shapes that interlock on an A3 sheet, arranged in a 10 x 10 cm grid; the shapes are quickly cut out by hand. There is, of course, an imagery drawn from crime films and the collection of footprints. But above all, there is a desire to quickly cut into reality, as if cutting up the landscape with scissors. Once the imprints are formed, a process of recomposition begins (as in my paintings on wood flooring). A clay slurry is applied to the slightly “rough-hewn” plaster, between 4 and 8 layers, using a soft brush. Plaster remains on the floor at home and in the studio, in the molded form, particularly in the joints. This ghostly image also appeals to me, like a trace of the trace.” Pierre Labat
the floor all around me, Susanne Bürner, Bordeaux, 2024.
A prime example of "above the street" urban planning—which involved vertically separating pedestrian and vehicular traffic by creating new ground levels dedicated to pedestrians—the Mériadeck neighborhood (1970s) features vast open spaces connected by footbridges and covered walkways. Intense activity unfolds here every day: among its cruciform towers, a multitude of people come to work, relax, or enjoy the many amenities. During a residency in Bordeaux, artist Susanne Bürner documented people’s physical interaction with the neighborhood’s buildings, which, in her videos and photographs, takes on the appearance of a performance. This sensation is accentuated by the film’s soundscape, created by composer Eliav Brand using on-site sound recordings.
“In Mériadeck (Bordeaux), I see the facades as an extension of the concrete slab, since they too are most often made of poured concrete. The lyrics ‘the floor all around me,’ taken from a K-pop song, were chosen as the title of my film to evoke the way this artificial surface envelops us and shapes our physical relationship to this space. Certain activities, such as skateboarding, are only possible on a sealed surface. On the slab, a world parallel to nature thus takes shape, controlling it by allowing it to appear only at a few select points, such as flower beds.” Susanne Bürner
Terre d’ici, Thomas Bellanger, Le Barp, 2018.
In 2018, arc en rêve presented the exhibition Terre d’ici, linking recent research on earth as a building material with two projects: one in Ivry-sur-Seine with Quartus, and the other in Biganos, in the Gironde region, with aquitanis. Photographer and architect Thomas Bellanger reflects on the images he took for this project.
“In 2018, arc en rêve contacted me to create a series of images on earthen building materials from the Gironde region. This project led me to discover the Grès de Gascogne factory. I headed to Le Barp at the end of the day, in late May. At the end of a long dirt road, I came to three modest buildings that revealed the productive nature of the place. The managers welcomed me and gave me directions to the extraction site for the next day. Early in the morning, I approach my subject. Piles of earth await their turn under metal sheds lining the path. After a few minutes, I arrive at the edge of a body of water from which the earth is extracted.” Thomas Bellanger
“Bordered by plantations of young pine trees that seem to stretch endlessly, the site resembles an aquatic clearing. The light mist and the turquoise color of the water lend it a surreal character. I stride briskly along the banks with my medium-format camera mounted on its tripod, driven by enthusiasm and the sense that this micro-landscape is fleeting. I end the morning inside the factory buildings, following the material’s journey from its place of origin to its transformation into an object, waiting for them to be shipped out on pallets. This visit left a lasting impression on me and helped sharpen my interest in the places created by the exploitation of resources—a sort of ‘consequential landscape.” Thomas Bellanger
Each in its own way, these contributions help document a landscape in metamorphosis, and establish the soil and earth as a fragile foundation for human habitation—one that must be preserved, even as it is transformed into a resource.