Architects: Anna Saint-Pierre, Atelier Faber
Area: 114 m²
Year: 2023
Photographs: Giaime Meloni
Lead Architects: Luca Antognoli, Gabriel Pontoizeau (Atelier Faber) in collaboration with Anna Saint-Pierre
City: Raismes
Country: France
Gaïette Installation, created by Atelier Faber and Anna Saint-Pierre, is a striking representation of Raismes’ mining heritage, commissioned by the city of Raismes and the association Art et Jardins Hauts-de-France. This project aims to highlight and question the historical and memorial sites of the Hauts-de-France region through its evocative design.
Gaïette vividly captures the transformation of the Raismes landscape, shaped by a century of mining activity and its subsequent evolution into a park post-1980. The landscape features mountains of shale covered with birches, remnants of brick embedded in clay and soil, and the ghostly presence of a head frame, which once marked the starting point for miners’ descent into the earth.
The installation’s title, “Gaïette,” references both the coveted coal fragments and the women who meticulously distinguished these treasures from the surrounding shale. The artists represent the former, now invisible, pits with solid cylindrical structures replicating their ground coverage (Ø3-5m), offering a spatial reference to the miners’ journey down to 700 meters.
The installation’s wooden shingles, coated in lustrous black coal paint derived from gaiettes, add a tactile dimension. These shingles were painted by the community in interactive workshops and installed on four wooden cylinders, mimicking the diameters of the former Sabatier and Vicoigne extraction pits. The Scots pines used for the shingles are sourced from the Raismes forest, a woodland cultivated by German prisoners after World War I as part of the war debt, intended to reinforce the underground galleries. This choice further ties the installation to the local heritage.
Positioned at the base of the Sabatier headframe, flanked by spoil tips 174 and 175, Gaïette is more than a visual exhibit. It encapsulates Raismes’ mining heritage, reflecting the profound landscape, societal, and economic upheavals induced by coal mining, a defining element of the Anthropocene era. The installation also symbolizes the local community’s determination to preserve their history against industrial encroachment.
Project Gallery
Project Location
Address: 59590 Raismes, France
Location is for general reference and may represent a city or country, not necessarily a precise address.
