As part of its cultural action mission, the Regional Natural Park of Landes de Gascogne is supporting the collective La Mà Esquerra for an artistic residency in its territory during October 2026.
Founded by Aram Pou Clavell, La Mà Esquerra is a public space creation collective blending circus, theatre, dance, music, and poetry. Their work focuses on the relationships between bodies, landscapes, and the communities inhabiting them. The project Courir les bois, a long-term research on forests and their transformation by human activities, gives rise to Coureurs des Landes, a walking performance combining tree climbing, documentary dramaturgy, and sound creation.
Coureurs des Landes examines the human relationship with tree communities. Six artists will spend several days in the heart of the forest to explore verticality, memory, and the link between the human body and the plant body. The result will be a shared walk with the public, a journey to the treetops where climbing ceases to be a spectacular gesture and becomes an everyday, ancestral skill, interwoven with words, stories, and small landscape fantasies.
This adventure will unfold within the Regional Natural Park of Landes de Gascogne, inviting a poetic and collective encounter with the territory's original wooded areas to establish a dialogue with the current pine forests, and to question how humans have transformed this landscape and, more importantly, how the landscape has transformed us.
Aram Pou Clavell, the project's initiator, emphasizes that "the cornerstone of this adventure is research into our relationship with the forest landscape. The question that occupies me is observing and understanding how humans transform the landscape and how the landscape transforms us (a more forgotten, but crucial aspect in my opinion)." She expresses a vital interest in establishing a reciprocal coexistence with a piece of forest and linking her political intentions to her profession, considering the connections between nature and culture.
She further explains that her research process aims to understand the forest and its stakes from various angles – scientific, social, historical, economic, spiritual – and sees herself more as an artisan than an artist, learning to recognize trees and their relationships to transform this understanding into a sensitive narrative.
The team includes Aram Pou Clavell (writing, direction), Christophe Rulhes (collaborative perspective), Aleix Lidon Baulida, Azucena Momo, Júlia Pluma, Álvaro Caballer, Thomas Baudoin, and Aram Pou Clavell (performers), Thomas Baudoin (musical creation), Atena Pou Clavell (costumes), and Gemma Roura (production).
A residency showcase is scheduled for Friday, October 16th at 6:30 PM at the Place du Village in Sore (40). Suitable for all audiences, duration 1 hour.
This project is supported by several partners, including Sur le Pont · CNAREP in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, FAI-AR – Higher Education in Public Space Art in Marseille, the Sismògraf Festival in Olot, the CPCG – Collective of Circus Professionals of Girona, Culture Lub – Le Grand Ménage in Cucuron, and the Institut Ramon Llull.
