A part of my family became Australians and as I studied and lived in Ireland, English is for me more than a second language. Though Evolplay's actual main bases are in Belgium, France and Spain, the word Evolplay is actually mainly rooted in English.

Evolplay is a "suitcase word": Literally "Evol-ution through Play-ing", then it is also Love Play and the first three letters E.V.O. are the initials of my name Eric Van Osselaer.

In 2006 Evolplay became also the main structure of François Cys and through us and our works, is linked to an always wider network of people and organisations.

Evolplay public tools for participative exhibitions and performances are created for adults and naturally appropriated by children. Playing, simplicity, humour and multidimentional respect for the other are directly born from the complexity of fundamentally new mechanics of tools and actions conception, generated by a fundamental change of perceptions of realities.

Come for what we want and get what we need: The missunderstanding about what these tools are, their functions and utilities. Is actually part of the way they help the users bypass the filtering processes of all informations reaching our senses, and the ways in which we compartmentalize all realities.

Evolplay was born in 1998 as "Le Luneux" then in 2004 became a sector of the non-profit organization Manufactor before becoming a non-profit organization in 2010.

Evolplay Center:

In 2013 we bought a big barn in Cantal in the center of France to create the future Evolplay center: research, creation, diffusion, training... A potential, a place for us and others, a ridiculously precise project and a totally opened one. A tool to participate to the development of existing networks dynamics as to all direct and indirect individual, local and global evolutions.

26m L x 10m l x 10m H + 4000 square meters of land.

The project was to build stock spaces, workshops, parts that can be lived in part of the year and others all year round. There is also room to create a number of autonomous apartments for residencies etc.

Also an occasion to further experiment and develop eco-bio construction techniques, in relation to levels of polyvalence and adaptability. Among so many other possibilities: Woods, clays, straws, light, mobile walls, homemade and designed dry toilets. Further experiments with rocket stove mass heaters...

Unfortunately a neighbor has fallen into a war to chase us. And a farmer who collects bells for his cows, installs the most formidable noise pollution plant more than 6 months a year. Making this place unusable and transforming the environment into a space of permanent sound torture.

I actually love the bells, a worldwide sound installation on which survival depended. An amazing heritage and bells were so important that they could be sanctified, engraving children names. All kinds of mytologies evolved around them...

Here it is dozens of computer perfected weapons, for cows in enclosed pastures, planted by a farmer living 5km away from the polution industry he inflicts to the animals, human beings, the landscape and "everything". Opening a crisis of bells which have no utility at all anymore and have become solely a sound installation. Which could be magnificent and evolve with this new status and reality, which is also an exceptional responsibility ? :-)

In a sad way it is fascinating that one of the rare "Hi FI" landscapes left in Europe, where it is possible to ear many km away. The few dull sounded traditionnal bells actually participating to natures orchestra and evolving full time symphony. Is destroyed by humans polutions and assimilating it as being part of the landscapes identity, which is just smashed and erased. The only thing left is possession, domination, pollution, torture and war against nature and others.

It is a reminder of just about all past and present problems on earth, as of our responsabilities.

As it is, the place has fabulous acoustics, originally the plans for building seeked to preserve and inhance that potential along with all others.

The Evoplay center is at about 800m altitude close by puy Mary that climbs to over 1700m. Cantal in the south of Auvergne is quite isolated, magnificent land of ancient volcanos with a different climate and generally colder winters then the Lot County which neighbors to the south.

The whole line going from the Alps to the Pyrenees, are regions at the back of the Mediterranean Sea where a lot of active communities and alternative projects grow. A whole dynamic that is not isolated from others in the countries bordering France. Cantal is central, it opens on the south of France and is almost equidistant from Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Germany.

Another reason why this region interested me is that it is dynamic in a shy way, compared to other regions. I tend to identify choosing Cantal as a more difficult challenge in relation to more open larger potentials. It could thus also play an important role in linking the fabric of French and European networks actively involved in building the futures of humanity in relation to its environment, life.

After 12 years of sabotage and problems with numerous simple solutions, totally blocked to the benefit of only losses and destructions, for everyone and everything. I suppose I will have to leave poverty and misery devouring the "winners" victims and move elsewhere.

One of the miracles of extreme poverty of this situation, is that it is one of the most empty landscapes of France. A place where respecting each other should be easier than almost everywhere else ?

Well, I suppose it is time to move on.