When you survey the valley of the Somme, you are fascinated by the traces which bear witness to its history, the water which sculpts the land, and the hand of man which has shaped it in the places where cities have sprung up… The lock alters the volumes of water and changes the natural topography. The winding river bed gives way to the straight lines of hydraulic engineering works.  The work Horizon seizes on this contrast. The banks of the Long lock are thus sculpted by vertical and repetitive elements, of varied thicknesses and heights, reminiscent of the fluidity of water and which contrast with the rigidity of the lines of the lock. These elements in wood with their bark still intact are like an echo of the clearings which can be seen from a distance, in the background. The mass of water held in by the lock springs up again in this vertical arrangement. In front of the lockmaster’s house, there is a viewing area, to enable this landscape to be better understood.

The collective CAP Paysages brings together Clara Magain – an architect and graduate of the Ecole de Paris La Villette, Agata Bednarczyk – an architect and landscape designer who trained at the Ecole Supérieure Polytechnique in Krakow in Poland, and Pierre Vuilmet – a plastic artist and architect. Different approaches which complement each other and offer an original vision of the area. Their fields of activity are varied: urban installations, landscaping projects and reflections on the area, through writing, drawing and photography.