In Brest, illustrator Gildas Java exhibits his convicts in large format [Vidéo]

The rope access technicians from Accessible, a company based in the Kergonan area of ​​Brest, are at work under the somewhat surprised gaze of passers-by. Climbed (by the internal staircase) to the top of the Recouvrance bridge, they rappel down to have access to the places on the two piers where they are preparing to carefully paste two posters, this Friday morning, June 28, 2024.

It is a little bit of the spirit of the Maritime Festivals which, little by little, is taking shape even if, in this case, the initiative is not part of the Brest Nautical Events programme but of “Brest au rendez-vous”, a sort of small off-site festival organised by the Brest town hall.

One last one in public at the Second Depot

A blue convict on a red background measuring 4×3 m, gradually appears, tattooed, proud, on the bridge, symbol of Brest. It was Gildas Java, co-author (with Pierre Malma) of the 2024 Maritime Festival poster, who signed it. Another must be installed this Saturday on the pile on the left bank side. Three others (four meters high by 1.5 m wide) will gradually take place between the windows of the Capuchins, another of square format (four meters on each side) between the arches under the cable car and ten others still (until the boulevard Jean-Moulin) of two meters by one. All outdoors, in this space close to the old penal colony, which has disappeared since 1940, on the left bank.

Added to this is a work measuring six metres by three representing a prostitute from the nearby Madeleine, on the gable of the former prison of Pontaniou. There will also remain a work measuring six metres high, on a neighbouring site, the Second Depot, which Gildas Java will paint in front of the public during the Festivities, from 11 to 14 July.

From July 5, at the bottom of the posters, a QR code will allow you, when scanned with your smartphone, to listen to ten podcasts of about two minutes each. Mikaël Ménez is the author. This sports instructor at Canoë-kayak brestois, “passionate about history, the environment, and transmission”, is also one of the voices heard in these podcasts. “It talks about François and Jeannot, who left Kremlin-Bicêtre for the Brest penal colony. It evokes, in a romanticized way, their living conditions, their dangerous work (in diving suits for example). It was the convicts who built the port of Brest…”, he says. “Victor Hugo, Albert Londres, Louise Michel spoke about the Brest penal colony. We also learn that the convicts who wore a red cap had a temporary sentence while those who wore a green cap were prisoners for life”. The symbol of the red cap will be taken up again later, as we know.

The posters, ephemeral, will be removed after a few weeks. A little after the Maritime Festival. The memory of the penal colony will have been revived.