The pyramid of chairs returns to Saint Jean Pied de Port

October 01, 2019

The pyramid made of recycled chairs painted by school children from the ikastolas of Baigorri, Donibane Garazi, Sohúta/Chéraute and Oztibarre has returned to Saint Jean Pied de Port after spending a month in Ordizia (Gipuzkoa) as part of an exhibition of paintings by Josette Dacosta.

For all of October, the chairs have found a new home in the town hall of Saint Jean Pied de Port, surrounded by the paintings of Josette Dacosta. They will then leave for a new, as yet unknown destination.

The children of the ikastolas had worked all through the spring on these chairs, some in Josette Dacosta's studio and others in their school. The children's families provided the chairs - broken down objects whose next destination would otherwise have been the garbage dump. The children turned them into works of art, in a project conceived as participatory art and focusing on the themes of working together and recycling

In Ordizia, the chairs had been mounted in a pyramid in the lobby of the cultural centre, a magnificent 17^th century mansion, much to the astonishment of the students of the music school and users of the municipal library, both located in this building.

But it was certainly for the pupils of the ikastola of Oztibarre that the surprise was the greatest.

They had worked for months on the project with their teachers and Josette Dacosta, but when they set off by bus on a school excursion one September morning they had no idea where they were going. Imagine their surprise when they found themselves confronted with the chairs that they had been painting, now transformed into a work of art!