JÉRÉMIE GINDRE

Le Pavillon Erratique

Mixed media, 2026

Two enormous boulders – the “Pierra Bessa” and the “Bloc Monstre” – stand on the northern side of the Montet hill near Szilassy Park. These erratic blocks, deposited here thousands of years ago by the now-vanished Avançon glacier, have long fascinated the inhabitants of Bex. They were also a source of intrigue for 19th-century geologists such as Jean de Charpentier, then director of the mines and saltworks, who defended the idea that they were of glacial origin.

With Le Pavillon Erratique, Jérémie Gindre devotes a miniature museum to these geological oddities. Perched among the landscape like another erratic block, it houses postcards, drawings, paintings, pennants and documents that, together, build a layered picture of these local landmarks – and of several of their famous counterparts elsewhere. From the structure’s windows or the nearby bench, visitors can look out across the Rhône valley, carved by the glacier of the same name that once transported boulders through the landscape like a vast conveyor belt. These monumental stones are surviving fragments of long-lost worlds, recalling a time when ice covered the grounds of the park.

Gindre’s installation thus functions as a space for both learning and contemplation, drawing attention to a little-known dimension of the region’s landscape.

Jérémie Gindre (CH, b. 1978*) lives and works in Geneva.