Gerard Larguier, Artist, France

Since 1994, the French National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (Andra) has been pursuing a study of collective memory, based on its experience with the Manche disposal facility. In 2010 - in response to the project Centre industriel de stockage geologique (Cigeo), its concomitant need to preserve collective memory of the site for at least 500 years, and public demand - Andra launched an initiative to ensure that future generations do not forget about the existence of radioactive waste disposal facilities. Pursuing its investigations in this area, Andra has led theoretical enquiries that consider art as a possible vehicle of collective memory. Memory is often found between parentheses that do not overload the spirit but enclose it in rules that facilitate forgetting... which is a vanity of the present moment. The past must always have the role of providing future ferment. And then the transfer occurs that can open up to history. Born in 1938, Gerard Larguier began working in 1956 with the renowned poster artist Paul Colin of Nancy before going on to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris and Academie Julian. He has worked at his studio in the Bateau Lavoir in Paris since 1979 as well as Bonnet's former presbytery in the Meuse since 1973. Using both materials and relief, he has exhibited his artwork at leading institutions around the world. Since 1998, he has taken up the theme of memory in his works 'Chronique du XXeme siecle', 'Autodafes et palimpsestes' and his series 'A saute-souvenances'. He has also tackled the evolution of artwork over the centuries in a series of fifty works entitled 'Les chefs-d'oeuvre revisites'. In 2008, Gerard Larguier completed a fresco commissioned by Andra on the local heritage and environment of the Bure Laboratory. In 2010, the municipality of Soulaines d'Huys commissioned a fresco of the history of the town from the sixteenth century to the present using the archives of residents and the municipality. His compositions, which consist of collage, torn and burnt paper, express the complexity of society and its contradictions. For him, memories occur in bursts that must be reconstituted according to the vision of the moment and objective chance, which is what determines the judgements that one makes