LES CHAMBRES
DE LUMIÈRE

The convent, the poet and the treasure...

Une activité atypique et inattendue à côté de Conques en Aveyron.

THE FORMER CONVENT OF ST CYPRIEN...

... is a curiosity in itself, far from the classic image of a religious building. It was founded within several 15th and 16th century houses which communicate with each other through openings made or destroyed over time. Witnesses to these successive transformations, the many landings and staircases in stone, wood or even tiled concrete, draw a labyrinth where centuries-old volumes rub shoulders with facilities from the 1950s. The renovation carried out with a view to making it an exhibition space has sought to reveal these particularities.

L'étonnant couvent de St Cyprien avec son escalier à vis du XVe siècle et ses aménagements des années 50.

BASTIEN CARRÉ...

... has been making sculptures, paintings and mobiles with LEDs for almost 15 years. His "lumigraphies", which owe their finesse to a technique that is unique to him, have led him to work with luxury houses, architects and collectors. It was in St Cyprien that he decided to carry out his most beautiful project by transforming the former convent of the village into a setting for his work.
Halfway between art and magic, the place was crowned winner of the last Talents d'Aveyron competition unanimously by the jury.

UNDER THE FRAME...

... is the extravagant bedroom-workshop of Honoré, the building maintenance man from the 1930s to the 1960s. Incredibly inventive, he developed luminous sculptures there with mini-lights of his own design. Bastien Carré, who hears about it 50 years later, thus discovers the convent which he decides to buy back to make it a place where their lyricisms intertwine.
The restoration of the room was accompanied by the creation of an avant-garde mobile designed by Honoré, its mini-lights being replaced by LEDs.