Murmurs of wood pigeons at the Bayonne Tourist Office.

After my artistic residence in Saint Palais, France, and after spending a few days resting in Madrid, I returned to France, this time to Bayonne, to participate in the Points de Vue urban art festival, which was held between the 19th and the 23rd of October 2021. Festival organized and also curated by Alban Morton in collaboration with Space Junk Bayonne.

This project was special from the beginning. The building, designed by Gayet Roger Architectes, was already an art piece in itself and I wanted to approach it with as much respect as possible for its architecture. I sought to merge my work with the forms of the building, to bring movement and intervene in all its faces at the same time. The idea was that, standing at a farder distance, the vision of the Tourist Office would continue to be the same, but as you get closer, my work begins to appear.

At the same time, I planned to enjoy the journey, the process, and I needed to improvise.

This was its appearance before the intervention:

The idea and sketches:

Select the wood or wild pigeon as the main element for the mural as it is a bird native to the area and very important to the city of Bayonne. It is a bird that lives in large groups, travels through Africa and Europe every year during its migration process and settles in the south of France. For all these reasons I decided that it would be a good bird for this project.
The tourist office was the ideal place to talk again about the migratory movements of human beings. It is a meeting point, starting point and ending point for many trips. A dynamic building, a meeting place with multiple points of view. There are many people who, like me, visit the city every year.


After five days this was the final result of my intervention:

Pictures by: DAVID DUCHON-DORIS


I can finally say that I enjoyed it. It has been a complex project but one that I am proud of. I hope I have lived up to the work of the architects and the building itself and it can be enjoyed by all the visitors and tourist that travel to Bayonne in the future.

It has been a pleasure to be part of this festival and have enjoyed this great city.
Thanks to Alban for trusting my work and to all the artists and friends with whom I shared those days, hope to see all of you soon somewhere.