This week's content > L'Histo-Party

On Wednesday 5 June, a Histo-Party will be held in Bagnères-de-Bigorre on the theme of ‘Water in all its forms’: water that heals, irrigates, fertilises, produces, seals, cleans and beautifies.

It will be held as part of the Haut-Adour Workshop, which will bring together around thirty academics and doctoral students in the valley from 3 to 8 June 2024.

We look forward to hearing from you! A number of young, working and retired people from the valley have already agreed to come and talk, for example, about the irrigation syndicates, fishing in the Capagaou in Bagnères, the cleaning of the Cazalèt ditch in Campan, the thermal swimming pool at the Casino in the 1970s, the water running through the streets of Bagnères when they were children, the embellishment of the Bagnet spring in Campan today, and so on.

Come and join them. The theme of water opens up a wide range of subjects, including water treatment, waterworks, the upkeep of canals and rivers, springs and fountains, bathing, kayaking... but what else?

To take part in this Histo-Party, please contact Liliane, who will record your suggestions and arrange a meeting:

Mail: histopartyhautadour@gmail.com

Tel: 06 09 12 63 44. On the afternoon of 5 June, between 2pm and 6pm, under the peristyle of the Musée Salies in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, eight small teams will be waiting to listen to your stories and record any documents or objects you decide to bring along.

An exhibition and stands from CAUE 65, the Friends of Madame Campan and the Société Ramond will enliven the afternoon.

What is a Histo-Party? Launched in 2019 by the universities of La Rochelle and Poitiers, the Histo-Party programme involves collecting the memories and recollections of local residents. These are convivial get-togethers focusing on one or more themes of local history, with those present helping to build an interactive online map that can then be shared and accessed by all. A Histo-Party brings together local residents, members of local associations, historians or history buffs, researchers, elected representatives or local authority technicians in an atmosphere of exchange and sharing. It's often an opportunity to bring documents out of the family archives and share them with as many people as possible. These documents are photographed or scanned and immediately returned to their owners. This year, the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle de Parisse is joining La Rochelle Université's Histo-Party programme to collect testimonies or objects relating to the environmental history of the waters of the Haut-Adour: in this way, you will be contributing to the Muséum's national initiative to preserve objects or accounts of local practices relating to our environment with a view to creating a participatory digital collection. (https://www.changing-natures.org/fr/contributions/261)

With the aim of generating a dynamic around local memory and its recounting, we are offering an opportunity for inter-generational exchange that will meet the need of older people to tell their stories, as well as the need of younger people and new residents to learn more about their area. Recordings and maps collected in this way are also intended to feed into current and future thinking on the maintenance and transformation of the local environment.

La Rochelle University,

Paris Natural History Museum,

ArScAn/ Time Machine OAPHB projects

Histo-Party coordinators: Frédéric POUGET, Aurélia DESPLAIN, Liliane BERNADOY, Richard SABATIER