Musée Gassendi

For two decades contemporary artists are invited to Digne-les-Bains to create the vast territory of the Geological Nature Reserve of Haute-Provence. From the beginning of the project in 1995, the Museum Gassendi and Art Center CAIRN worked together to deploy a collection of works on the territory through public orders. Gradually, an important set of permanent works was produced in the natural environment, which covers over 200 000 hectares.

Designed in a residence time during which the artists imbue the place, the works are intrinsically linked to the territory. Working in situ, the artists question in each piece where it operates. If all approaches are unique and singular, all the artist makes visible the reality of an erosion phenomenon without them escape the visitor: the departure of the rural population of Haute-Provence. Walking is the only way to access works, they invite visitors to reconnect with the movements in the highlands. And there is something else too: an historical echo in Pierre Gassendi, a 17th-century inhabitant of the area who reputedly answered Descartes' maxim, "I think, therefore I am", with his own: "I walk, therefore I am."