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The site of the Moulin de la Blies:
a place full of «memories»

The garden of the Moulin de la Blies has been laid out over a former production site of the Sarreguemines faience works. For a long time, this area was an industrial waste- land inhabited only by memories of the town’s past as a faience production centre. This particular spot was used for preparing the paste, an initial phase in the production process of faience. The tasks carried out here were very rough and the labourers often worked in the cold, humidity and mud. They transported the raw materials, pushed wheelbarrows, broke up clumps of earth, ground the minerals used as ingredients for the paste, and manipulated levers to filter the liquid clay. These tasks required great physical effort. During one hundred and fifty years, generations of workers succeeded each other before the machines came to a standstill, silence descended over the place and nature reclaimed its rights.

Thirty years after being abandoned, the site has now become a repository for the memories of its past.
The grinding mill has been turned into a museum where visitors can learn all about the process of making ceramic, and also listen to its former workers relating their story.

The vocation of a museum is not only to preserve heritage and present it to the public, but also to revive it. This is why one of the purposes of the garden of ruins is to host various events every summer on the theme of ceramics, as well as shows in its green theatre, on the very spot where sedimentation tanks for the liquid clay were spread one century ago. Open-air exhibitions are held regularly among the ruins. For example, a photo exhibition, entitled "Industrial Landscapes", of the factory buildings as they were at the end of the 19th century will be displayed on the walls of the old workshops during the summer, up to 31 October 2001.

It was also considered important for the establishment to acknowledge the various forms of expression adopted by contemporary artistic creation, which has a vitality and diversity that is a constant source of amazement. It is, in fact, an extension into the future of ceramic in all its forms. Memory and creation are the two poles around which the cultural activities of the site are clustered. Within the framework of this approach, the City of Sarreguemines decided two years ago to invite the ceramic artist Jacques Kaufmann who, after his first visit of the site, was enchanted by its features. The city council suggested he should make a contribution to the site through an artistic creation.

The artist wished to work on the theme of "the memory of the place", to enhance the traces of labour left by men at the site by setting up five installations. He decided to evoke all that has disappeared by signs and to erect the raw materials as the ultimate witnesses of the former production activities.

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The Six Installations :

		Silica Pebbles at the Entrance This impressive pile of silica pebbles placed at the entrance will inevitably surprise visitors. It is a remembrance of erosion, of the wear and tear of raw materials, and the refining process used to prepare ceramic pastes and enamels. The purpose of this installation is to evoke the rotating movement of pebbles in a grinder through a geometric and cylindrical shape that penetrates the vague mass of the heap.
		Hills of Potsherds in the Forest In the forest, visitors will come across an undulating relief made up of a myriad of broken faience pieces, more or less covered in vegetation, in which trees have taken root. The idea is to make onlookers aware of the special quality of the ground and, through the net-like filigree pattern of the potsherds, to symbolise the lightness of a thought, of memory. This membrane-wall of potsherds has the same effect as a flimsy veil, allowing the view to circulate. The vertical arrangement of the fragments of faience reveals their origin and the formidable capacity of nature to return to wastelands that, at first, seem to be sterile.
		Cemetery of Mills Springing up around the corner of a walk, unavoidable, it moves us in the same way as a cemetery of elephants. Even though abandoned, the mills still retain the power of their servile hours of glory. Freed from their function, their inner energy radiates through their materiality and the memories they arouse. Glass, as a material of translation, causes the plastic power harbouring inside these elements to resonate in a dual poetry.
		Columns of Pebbles Here, visitors stand before a subtle displacement. A careless foot would not notice the consistency of the earth in the undergrowth. Everything that has grown emerges from pebbles, demonstrating the power of re-conquering a territory through plants. When it covers so-called cultural spaces, like Angkor for example, the struggle is clear. But in this case, the complexity arises out of the fact that plants have spread over rejected material and used pebbles that have been forgotten. A column of pebbles rises from the detrital nature of the ground, the wild substratum between natural materials and industrial rejects.
		Sedimentation Tanks At present, three grassy levels trace the initial profile of this area, which was once used for washing and filtering clay. This refining process is given emphasis by the size of the elements.
		Central Court Like a playground or an area for relaxation, the court seems to be waiting. What laughs and tears, words and silences, hopes and fatigues pervaded the atmosphere here long ago? This installation answers the question and the present void by incorporating, on another scale, a fragment of the decoration that once enlivened the surface of faience objects. The decoration recovers its freedom and escapes from its original setting to find light and life. The materials? Bricks and plants.
		A Chimney Stack was planned but could not be made. Pictures from the beginning of the 20th century show the elegance of this possessed chimney. Truncated, and therefore with a cumbersome appearance, it seems to be suffering from this amputation. As a distinguishing sign of both the company and the site as a whole, the factory chimney served as a landmark on a scale exceeding the place itself. Giving it back its original size through a filigree structure in the sky should restore to this feature all its meaning as a symbolic landmark linked to the development of the site. However, the project had to be dropped for technical and safety reasons relating to wind exposure and fragile materials. Visitors who look at the chimney closely will notice that it leans slightly from the fifth ring, making any intervention at the top a risky venture.

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The Concepts Developed by Jacques Kaufmann

Loss • Memory • Resurgence • The Perceptible

This is a circuit through different and specific areas of the site, not very discernible under present conditions but made visible thanks to interventions that visitors are invited to explore.

Entry Pebbles: a mass in the circular movement of grinding
Potsherds Forest: to evoke memory, industrial products and the power of plants
Mills: the shifting of materials
Pebble Forests: : stone columns, from the horizontal to the vertical, from the passive to the active
Sedimentation Tank: a visualised function
Garden: floral decoration, from the space of the decoration to real space
Chimney Stack: a missing part

The aim is to give meaning once again to the identity and different functions of the place through the contrasts formed by:
The presentation: horizontal - vertical
The material: stone, pebbles, potsherds, bricks and glass
The shape: heaps – geometric forms
The scale: decoration – space-filling
Visitors are not confronted by a nostalgic feeling for the past but by a relationship between the present site and its shift towards a new poetic mood.

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Educational Dimension of the Project

As the Sarreguemines museums also have a teaching vocation, it was decided to associate the Henri Nominé technical school of Sarreguemines with some of Jacques Kaufmann’s installations.

Students in the first and second year of the school’s course on the Maintenance of Mechanical and Automated Systems had the opportunity of participating in the construction of three metal structures:
1. the pebbles at the entrance
2. the potsherds in the forest
3. the column of pebbles in the forest.

This work was in direct application of their school programme. In the "Production" part of the curriculum for the technical school certificate on the maintenance of mechanical and automated systems, students must acquire the following skills:
- new works;
- machining of spare parts ;
- modification or renovation of sets and subsets ;
- - assembly of different parts using various technologies (cutting, bending, forming, drilling, screwing, threading, pinning, welding, etc).

The construction of these installations led to the practical application of theories taught in class, from the design phase to the actual production (overall design, definition, logistic production, and on-site assembly). The enthusiasm and energy of all the participating students were only equalled by their joy and pride when faced by the completed work.
What better preparation for their future professional careers?
A big thank you to both students and teachers.