I’m headlining a sculpture festival in France!

This week I’m in the beautiful city of Rouen in France working on my sculpture for the La Foret Monumentale art exhibition. 🌿

Join me as i discover the magical city and talk to and meet some of the other great artists also working on their sculptures for the festival: LINFENG ZHOU, EVA DABROWSKA, OLIVIER THOMAS, MATHILDE CAYLOU and ATELIER YOKYOK😊

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Welcome to Trash Talk with your favorite garbage artist, Thomas Dambo. This week, I’m in France, in Normandy, in a city called Rouen, where I have had the honor to be headlining an art festival called Foret Monumental. It means monuments of the forest. Me and 16 other artists from all over the world are here in this forest, building our artwork. This week, I want to show you some of these other artists’ amazing work. Next week, you’ll see what I’m building, and you can have a peek of it behind me right here. Back sweet, back sweet, back on. How can we work with art and nature? How can we get to know how nature works and how to work with recycled or natural materials? I was looking for an artist doing something really special. I was pretty interested in artists working with rubbish. I mean, it’s amazing to work with rubbish and create art pieces. Thomas came to me, and it was perfect because he’s working with rubbish, doing art pieces, and enormous projects. It was amazing for the festival. Hello. Hello. You build them here or in Poland? You build them at home? Yes, yes. And inside is metal? Yeah, metal frame. Because they are empty inside. The first bar was like a prototype, but it’s very heavy, so we thought maybe we should change the concept for making our sculpture. We think it’s good to make a skeleton and make some like a box, empty inside, and put maybe three layers of sticks. And why did you choose this animal? Because I love pigs, wild pigs. They’re my favorite animal. Okay, that’s good. Do you have a lot of them in Poland? Yes, we have a lot, but not much space for them. So, I chose wild animals. For me, they symbolize a united herd. It’s our home. It’s important to think about wild places for animals because there are fewer and fewer. Yeah, that’s really nice. Congratulations on the project. Thank you. I want to see your work. We’re over there the whole next week. Hello, my name is Thomas. Good to meet you. I saw in the magazine for the festival that you are making a really nice piece. I thought I would ask you what you’re making and show it to my followers because we all love sculptures and wood. I’m making a giant acorn out of plywood here in the forest in Rouen. As you can see, there are many pre-cut notches in the plywood. This will be an interlocking structure put together with minimal use of nails and glue. It’s almost halfway there. The interior of this acorn is completely out of my imagination. I imagine there’s an integrated bench around the cap, casting gentle light through this enclosed space. It’ll be an intimate meditation space. Thank you for talking to me. I’m looking forward to seeing your finished sculpture and hope for good luck and weather. Thank you. My pleasure, looking forward to seeing yours. This is all from my old roof. It’s old, dismounted roof. When they change the hatch, they throw it away and get new one. We got this for free. How old is this? I think it’s almost 30 years. They change it every 30 years. I also know you’re using recycled hatch and other recycled materials in your projects. Yes, we want to use more recycled material. It has a positive social impact, transforming the cost of new materials into social work. That’s also what I do. You meet many people, learn techniques from other countries, and find other types of recycling material. Why do you make all the houses like this? We wanted to create strand shapes in the forest, like creatures but also like a big jacket or coat. Yes, it’s like a big coat with an opening for people to pass their heads and look around. So it’s between a creature and the clothing of the creator. Are you all a collective working together here? Yes, we are. Not all are here, but there are four of us: Bine, L, Luke, and me. Cool. Thank you for showing me your work. It looks really nice. Can I go inside? Yes, please. Hello. Hello. Hi, my name is Thomas. Okay, my name is Thomas too. Oliver, perfect. Well, that’ll be easy. This thing is about Foret Monumentale. I don’t know how you can say it. We hope maybe in 2 years that all this… Is this jasmine? No, they grow here. We put it here. Oh, this is jasmine you brought? Yes. See there? We put it at the base and hope it will grow up, making the church green and cool. We call it Green Cathedral. I think it looks good and strong. Is it large? What tree is it? Douglas fir. Okay, there’s no treatment, so you can put it in the ground, no problem. It can last a long time. Why do you say it’s junk on your shirt? That’s a gift. No, it’s because I love junk. Everything I make is from trash, so it makes me happy to see you using a recycled net. Thank you for talking to me and showing your beautiful work. I would love to see it once all the flowers grow up on it. This is the net Olivier is using on his wooden church. It’s an old safety net from a construction site. It makes me happy to see him recycling. Now we’ll talk to Matilda. She’s from France and doing something with water or water droplets. Let’s check it [Music] out. Do you make the glass yourself? Yes, I’m a glassblower. My idea is an installation that talks about water, rain, and its connection with vegetation. The rain comes to the plant, creating a cycle. To have the raindrop in glass in a small lake was perfect. For me, my work always looks and then fits in a specific place. Yeah, it’s important to choose the place because without the place, this is nothing. Were you invited to come here? Yes, Christina sent me an email. Hey, we have an open call, can you please answer? I said yes, of course. We were 265 artists who sent propositions. Congratulations, we are lucky. These are glass sticks. I turn them in the flame, the glass melts, and it makes the balls. Then with tweezers, I make the small circle so you can attach it. Ah, okay. Is it a hole? Yes, there is a hole inside. Can I try the ladder? Be careful, it’s not safe. Welcome to my world. It’s nice to be up here. So you twist it? Okay, I understand. You loop it every time, so they can’t move and break. There will be wind, I hope. Thank you for telling me your story. Are you coming tonight? Yes, probably. See you After a great first week in the project where we found the location in the forest, met cool artists from all over the world, and got a good start on the project, it was finally Friday and time to go out and see the city. We went to the local gallery where they had an exhibition about all the artworks getting built in the forest. They asked me to make a model of my sculpture, but I never really do models. Instead, I built a little house to show how all the houses I’m building next to the giant will be. We got a couple of glasses of wine and got in a really good mood. When the party ended, we walked into the streets where we got swarmed by a riot of musicians. There were drum parades, reggae music, and opera singers. It’s something they call Fête de la Musique, where everybody can go into the street and play all the music they want. We participated, danced, hung out, and had a great time in Rouen. Stay tuned for next week if you want to check out what I’m building here in France. This one is really, really nice. Like always, I make the project bigger and bigger. This time, it’s running out. Now there are 3 days left, and we’re starting to feel the pressure.