Promenade Gassendi is a veritable outdoor museum, whose large plantains form its mighty columns. The sculptures, as if fallen from the sky as urbane insights, have gradually won over the local citizens and tourists with the sense of their belonging directly to the latitudes of fantasy.
It would seem that the priest Pierre Gassendi, “erudite libertine" of the 17th century, wanted to baptize these works of artistic freedom with the dew of an ever-new morn. The experiment becomes a very interesting stop on a route within the steady evolution of a possible garden; a merging of creativity and nature, city life and cultural pursuit, each with an affinity for the other.
The city of Digne-les-Bains has always wanted to enhance the artistic patrimony it established for itself during the exhibits devoted to marble sculpture. Thanks to the five international shows held there in 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989 and 1991, the city now owns more than seventy sculptures.
It has therefore decided to find a place for these sculptures in some of the gardens and public spaces so as to create a city itinerary. People today are increasingly shut up in virtual spaces, and more and more the hectic pace of daily life whets their desire to find cultural activities and quiet places to share intellectual experiences.
A city itinerary that concentrates on perceptions gives you a new way of looking at places. And sculpture has the capacity to better define these places in terms of space by offering spectators the opportunity to witness the dialogue between works of art and their settings. Placing the sculptures inside the gardens of the city also aims to put sculpture to the test of time by comparing it with the evolution of nature.