As part of the Artistic Observatory of the ash tree avenue in Trampot (Eastern France), we welcomed the Franco-Tunisian artist Ridha Dhib on March 24th. The day before, he had stopped in Trampot on his long performance 'Ex-tracés', and written a short passage of the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees. 

The avenue is now documented by a photo and a video sequence with an augmented reality compass that points towards Mardin, at the Turkish-Syrian border, 3118 km away, the goal of the "Ex-tracés" performance.

This virtual artwork of our Observatory will only exist if it is known and shared by as many people as possible. You can comment the picture and the avenue here.

On June 25th and 26th, artist Constance Fulda returned to continue the rubbings of the ash trees on washi paper. 113 have already been completed, representing roughly half of the final work, and a length of 56.50 m. For six of the rubbings made, they represend the only tangible remains of the trees, since these were felled in 2022..

During her performance, Constance Fulda also exhibited six 8m high rubbings of oaks intended for the reconstruction of the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris. It created an 'emotional shock,' as one participant expressed it. There is no doubt that the effect will be as mighty when Constance Fulda's intervention for the Observatory is completed, as the entire work will be nearly 125 m long!

 The Observatory can be continued thanks to the support of our donnors, the IRIS foundation in particular

On July 15th and 16th, 2023, for the 4th season of the Artistic Observatory of the Trampot avenue (Vosges), we welcomed once again the artist Constance Fulda. She continued her patient rubbings of the ash trees in the Trampot avenue - 157 have already been made, representing an art piece of nearly 80 m in length. Ultimately, it will exceed 100 m! With heir paint roller and her Japanese washi paper, both extremely thin and strong, Constance reveals the trees' unique and fascinating calligraphy of their bark. Magic happens - even an attentive gaze would be unable to anticipate the image.

We also welcomed the storyteller and musician Julie Ory. Where Constance Fulda reveals the written expression of the trees, Julie Ory makes us open our hearts to listen to their language. The audience was captivated by the tales which she complemented with cello pieces.

Watch the short film by Thierry Passerat

The RD 427 avenue, a 3.3 km long ash tree avenue, is documented at least as of the early 19th century and was replanted in the 1950s. The County road is running through the village of Trampot (Vosges), close to Joan of Arc's birhtplace Domrémy la Pucelle.

It is a very special avenue : due to be felled in 2005, it lead to investigating avenue policies in Europe and drafting of a white book about tree avenues (Road infrastructures - Tree avenues in the landscape) that was published by the Council of Europe as part of the work around the European landscape convention. To ensure its preservation, a bill was drafted and a legal protection of tree avenues in general was eventually integrated into the French environmental code in 2016.

The ash tree avenue is under the pressure of Chalara fraxinea, a fungus causing ash dieback. 24 trees were felled in 2019, out of 271. Some others were felled in 2022 and 2023. But being situated in an open landscape, the trees still resist quite well. The preservation of this avenue is interesting to monitor the resistance to ash dieback. It is also important for the rich biodiversity associated with ash trees and as a corridor for bats linking the village to the forest.

In 2023, a row of young maples was planted along a path close to the road, on its westward section, to anticipate the future removal of trees.

The dynamics of the evolution of the trees and the avenue serve as a background for an artistic landscape observatory: we invite artists to follow this evolution over the years. The artworks produced will eventually showcase the avenue, for the benefit  of the village of Trampot.

In 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, we invited Constance Fulda, Ridha Dhib, Julie Ory. In 2024, the acoustic ensemble Angeli Primitivi, the French sculptor José Le Piez and the American photographer Wayne Gudmundson added their own contributions. Click on the years for more details.

2025 is a special year: exactly 20 years after the ash trees were about to be cut down, the photographs of Wayne Gudmundson and the imprints of Constance Fulda will be presented to the public in two exhibitions.

At the end of the symposium organized in 2018, we exchanged thoughts about the initiative called “Tree Avenues - Horizon 2030”, and we retained three keywords:

link, knowledge, events.

Link

By their very nature, tree avenues constitute a physical link between two points. They trace routes, even valued touristic routes such as the German Deutsche Alleenstraße, and precious ecological corridors.

Tree avenues create temporal links: today’s tree-lined streets and roads take us back to the “French-style” garden of the 17th century; memorial avenues in Australia or Canada etc. take us back to WWI. 

Tree avenues form symbolic links: the avenue planted in 2014 on both sides of the German-Polish border in a program called “Make avenues – not borders” is an example. Symbolic links are doubled with human links. And these effortlessly transcend geographical distances.

This makes avenues perfect carriers of the values of cohesion and peace. “Horizon 2030” we are aiming at is an horizon with more avenues, and qualitative avenues, i.e. more physical links, more symbolic links, more human links.

Possible actions: Planting avenues - Creating or managing touristic routes -Twinning avenues and linking people together

Knowledge

Knowledge is essential if we want to preserve avenues in the long term.

We need precise know-how in terms of management to counter the disappearance of trees and avenues.

We need to know where we can find our avenues, we need to be able to recognize them when only a few trees are left, in order to be able to acknowledge their value, to prevent their disappearance, or to replant them.

We need to know the characteristics of tree avenues in general and of each avenue in particular to reconcile the technical imperatives of trees and roads with their historical / cultural interest, their environmental interest, and their social interest (as is required under the terms of article L350-3 of the French Environmental code).

Breaking down divisions, sharing knowledge between different kinds of stakeholders—the man in the street, elected officials, and professionals—and between different kinds of professionals—experts in arboriculture, biologists, landscapers, developers, road managers etc—, and building together is crucial for quality projects and to avoid conflicts.

Necessary actions: Inventories and studies - Sharing knowledge - Crossing disciplines & building together

Events

Events are absolutely necessary to fight against attrition of memory, due to things being forgotten or becoming banal, and to keep heritage alive and visible in the community.

The initiative

The participants in the conference listed 58 actions they have already undertaken or would be interested in taking part in. They could all be related to one of the key-words “link”, “knowledge”, “events”

Events: Dynamic events (circulating in avenues) - Static events (artistic) - Linking events to each other