Saint-Saturnin (France) (AFP)

In the living room, the garden, the barn or even the garage: until Sunday, the contemporary art invests the houses of the inhabitants of a small Auvergnat village for the eleventh edition of the festival Days of light.

"We must accept to bring people into our space, into our universe, in the village.A closed house does not live! It must be open," enthuses Cécile Charlemagne, a resident of Saint-Saturnin ( Puy-de-Dôme), home to the works of sculptor Pascal Catry.

In the middle of the tree-lined courtyard, three easels - one of which supports a zinc painting-sculpture of the artist - stand next to the table and the garden chairs.

Overhanging, an old barn with walls covered with Virginia creeper: it is there that Mr. Catry has installed other works in gray tones, barred with rust-colored irregular lines.

"I practice an art of recycling, I collect very old gutters that have protected us a hundred years, and I give them to see with the traces that the rain left: it is a work on the memory, the time which passes, "he explains.

"I admit that I did not know much contemporary art, but it's a discovery every time: when I see the work of Pascal Catry, it never occurred to me that zinc could serve from material to works ", testifies Ms. Charlemagne.

- Art "available" -

A few blocks away, Marc Fredou pushes the wooden door of his imposing home, surrounded by a park that serves as a gallery during the festival to Manon Damiens, also a sculptor.

The statues and stone benches of the vast garden are next to metal, aerial and light works. Some ring in the wind. Upstairs, in the living room, Clothilde Lasserre, a painter from Paris, installed his paintings in front of the old fireplace where visitors are invited to walk.

"In a gallery, it is necessary to make the step to push a door, and often people say that it is reserved for a certain elite". There, "we reach a wider audience and it's really nice because that's what art is for, it's available to everyone," says Manon Damiens.

But this biennial festival also invests the emblematic buildings of the medieval village of some 1,100 inhabitants, such as the 13th century castle or the chapel housing a sculpture-video by Anne-Sophie Emard. Eleven works, exceptionally from the collections of the Regional Contemporary Art Fund (Frac) of Auvergne are also presented.

For Patrick Lepercq, president of the festival, "it creates the link around a work of art, artists, the population and visitors, it's a whole village that comes alive and opens completely."

The artists "stay there for three days, meeting the people and, towards their hosts who host this exhibition and the public wandering in the village, it creates something very special", note- there.

In total, nearly 500 works, made by thirty artists are exhibited in various fields: street theater, music, sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics, digital art.

Concerts, including one of André Manoukian Saturday evening, and conferences mark the festival that welcomes nearly 7,000 visitors and chose this year theme "Vibrations": expression of feelings, movements of artists.

© 2019 AFP