The ARIUMS ©

These are inventions. They combine the real : the natural elements,
with the virtual : the cinema, in total immersion.

The scenography of nature is not a label: it is a form of research. Performed by the scenograph - museograph Frédéric RAVATIN, it is presently being implemented for the TERRA BOTANICA Park which is due to open in Angers in 2010.

The scenographic creations of Frédéric RAVATIN use natural elements in indoor or outdoor shows or scenograph spaces, where they "play their own role". Water, ice, wind, rain, sun, plants, present in their natural state or introduced as actors taking part with as much importance as the architecture, context with which they play or are invested until they become one with it.

With a few major projects that have become references in museography and parcours - spectacle in the field of Ancient Monuments (Château de MAYENNE, Citadelle de BITCHE), Frédéric RAVATIN creates cine-scenes that adjust to the historical or archaeological context. In particular, he develops integral cinematographic productions which are then adapted to the sites thanks to scenographic techniques and processes. These productions mobilise the best cinema has to offer: extremely precise and sophisticated digital creations, and the use of well known figures, namely from among the actors (Charles BERLING, François CLUZET, Virginie LEDOYEN, for the recent historical productions for the Citadelle de Bitche and Terra Botanica). Within this scope, Frédéric RAVATIN has imagined the principle of double funding where, using the same production means, but with a double public and private financial participation, two products are made: a site product and a television product. Thus, the cine-scene for the Citadelle de Bitche, produced by the author Gérard MORDILLAT, was jointly financed by the TV channel ARTE.

Frédéric RAVATIN is the designer of a facsimile: that of the Chauvet - Pont d'Arc Cave... which is not quite one. The real cave covers some 8 500 m2, and it was out of the question to recreate it entirely. The reduction and adaptation of the site to make it a space suitable for visitors has required several years of effort, the development of a specific methodology and the intervention of specialists in all kinds of fields: digital survey and modeling, digital milling, cinema, scenography, facsimile in geology and palaeontology, specialists in the reproduction of the parietal representations, scientists in charge of studying the original. For the first time in the production of a facsimile of this complexity and this importance, the study-production process is entirely digital. This know how, which also includes the management of the visitors: safety, disablements, multilinguism, and the mediation - the traces of the past must be understood, and the illegible or invisible past should be revealed – is today implemented in a concept: the ILIUM.