ESTUAIRE 2007.2009.2012

An artistic overland trail: Get ready for a walk like no other!

Estuaire Nantes <> Saint-Nazaire
on in 2007-2009-2012 is 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. The installations whether temporary or permanent are all built in place.

Since 2007 around 16 installations are parts of a whole stretching over 60kms. A house suspended 15m up, a 7m pendulum swinging on the side of an old cement works, a star garden, a 40m snake, a water nymph camped out in the St Felix canal, a garden on the roof of a submarine base, a boat that sulks, an observation tower in the middle of a marsh and the now famous rings' by Buren in the port of Nantes. All of these installations stand out on their own as well as taking you round a fascinating land, discovering local natural environment.

You can get to all of the places over land (foot, bike, nearby parking). In the years on' a river cruise from either Nantes or St Nazaire enables you to see the natural richness of the river and the surrounding area.

Information : www.estuaire.info

By telephone : . 02 40 75 75 07 from Tuesday - Saturday, 13:00 to 20:00

The permanent installations from the 'Estuaire' arts festival in Nantes

Open from Friday to Sunday 14.00-18.00

It's a good idea to start here at Station Prouvé: a visitor information centre where you'll be able to pick up information on the artistic trail. 15 short films on the permanent exhibitions are projected even on the windows so you can see them even when the centre is closed, making it a magic lantern shining in the night from night-fall to 23.00

It is the image of a young woman, nymphe or mermaid living peacefully in a watery world. This undine is incarnated by Laetitia Casta, modern day society's own mythological water nymphe.

Nantes - Bâtiment Manny, rue Lanoue Bras de Fer

Passing close to the building is enough to know that Air is there, resonating under the metallic skin of the building and rather subtlely making the front 'audible'.

Nantes - Bâtiment Manny, rue Lanoue Bras de Fer

The artist got the idea from British pedestrian crossings and re-designed the area opposite the building giving it a deregulated feel and making the visitor look twice before crossing... especially as she didn't stop just on the outside!

A permenant installation from the 'Estuaire' art festival.

The French three-dimensional artist made world famous by his 1986 installation 'Les Deux Plateaux' in the Palais Royale in Paris. Here Daniel Burren has delivered 18 rings that highlight the double perspective of architecture and the natural that this part of the isle offers. At night their halos of red, green and blue redraw  the scenery.

In Trentemoult (Rezé)

A permanent installation from the 'Estuaire' arts festival, see section on the Isle of Nantes for more details. The artist came across the dis-used cement works built at the end of the 1960s and decided to hang a 7m pendulum on the front. It's an absurd clock, with no hands, marking out the time slowly but surely ticking away until the unavoidable demise of the building and ultimately us all.