Freemousse

Collaboration with Apollonia : Vivacity

Freemousse is an Artists’ collective of three residents of Saint-Denis City: Laure (illustrator artist specialized in kids products), Gonzague (graphic designer working in public urban spaces) and Willemine (ceramic artist). This collective was launched in Saint-Denis City from a deep desire to interact in very dense urban areas, with original, experimental and surprising artistic creations.

Both residents and actors of the shaping of the city, Willemine, Laure and Gonzague came to the idea to work with a vegetal material, forest moss, in order to create a type of footprint, or land mark, in a soft, poetic and environment friendly fashion.

The collective favorite working time is the week-end, when the local residents are hanging out in the public spaces. When the adults and the kids discover the work in progress, they freeze, wonder and question the artists. With their smile, with their questions, or even with a thank you, they encourage the artists to continue the action. This type of interactions with the locals turned a one shot artistic creation into a whole program, they fueled and shaped the Freemousse project.

To maximize the moss life expectancy, the creations are settled on North oriented walls. The pieces of moss are fixed with a home made glue, made with only natural products. Moving like a living organism, the moss takes different shapes, in an ever going metamorphoses movement. The immediate urban context, the street, the wall whisper the idea, and the moss extends itself in the desired shape. With this creative ritual settled, the local residents are used meet the new resident, the Moss, and they look for the latest creation they haven’t seen yet, in a hidden object game urge. In addition to respond to the esthetic and the fun criteria, the Freemousse action responds to an ecological objective to vegetalize the cities and to sublime nature in the urban realm.