2025 is a special year for the Artistic Observatory of the Ash-tree avenue in Trampot: twenty years after the RD 427 highway was very nearly stripped of all its trees, the Observatory's first exhibitions took place in the village. They also hosted a concert and two awareness-raising workshops on pruning ornamental trees. As in previous years, all these events were free of charge.
A professor emeritus of photography at Minnesota State University, American photographer Wayne Gudmundson is known for his landscape photographs, which are included in the collections of many major American and foreign institutions such as the MoMA in New York. Wayne Gudmundson is interested in landscapes for the marks left by man and nature and for the history they reveal. In his black-and-white photographs, which detach us from time, he excels at conveying the precision of documentary photography and the intensity of art work.
The 25 photographs on display took us to see the avenue in Trampot and nearby avenues in this part of eastern France between Nancy and Dijon.
The 90-page exhibition catalogue, in English and French, is available in our shop.
The works of French visual artist Constance Fulda, trained at the Camondo School in Paris, are included in major french collections, and are exhibited in France, India and Japan. Trees have long been a source of fascination and inspiration for Constance Fulda, with their astonishing ‘calligraphy’ that she reveals through her rubbings.
During five artistic residencies between 2020 and 2025, Constance Fulda made 232 rubbings – a work stretching almost 120 metres! –, creating poetic “identity cards” for the ash trees lining Trampot Avenue, as they reveal a matricule engraved in 2014.
The 146-page exhibition catalogue, in English and French, is available in our shop..
On 22 June, José Le Piez and Patricia Châtelain (aka Angeli Primitivi) gave an Arbrassons concert in the church, surrounded by Constance Fulda's art installation. The Arbrassons used for the concert included for the first time #256, created in 2024 from the trunk of a felled ash tree in the avenue. These sculptures, created by José Le Piez, deliver the songs and laments of the wood under the caress of the hands. The fascination they inspire is due to the aesthetic sense of the sculptor and the precision of his craftmanshif, but also to the musical and choreographic talent of the performers, who have previously performed with musicians such as Yuri Buenaventura, Beñat Achiary and Dominique Regef.
During the artistic residency following the concert, José Le Piez created a new sculpture that will be unveiled to the public next year...
On 28 June, in Trampot and another nearby village, David Wilmart invited his audience, particularly the elected representatives, to watch the young ornamental trees in their villages.David is responsible for training tree climbing arborists at an agricultural school.
His explanations and practical demonstrations convinced the audience that trees are living organisms that are extremely sophisticated. They must be treated with care, respecting their physiology, which is also in the interest of the municipalities' scarce resources.
