Dream associations can be strange. What was this iris doing in the city centre?
And then came the memory of a trip to Florence, symbolised by the iris. And a few days later, I learnt that one of Giono's rare trips was to Italy, to Florence....

The background is a beer filtration tank, the traffic lights are from Glasgow city centre and the figures are practising aikido. A summary of my high school years. My bookseller was Scottish, one of my French teachers was president of the Aïkido PACA federation, and beer was the only drink I had for hours spent in the café when a teacher was away.

The stone lady has changed places several times. And her head has been stolen. But in my earliest memories, on summer market days, the fairground stallholders would put her in a swimming costume, hat and sunglasses. That was in the 70s, and some people would change their route to avoid seeing this bare-chested woman, while others would make children turn their heads away...

The Bouteille fountain, named after the bust that crowns it. For a long time I thought it was its shape that gave it its name. The main door, which for me opened onto the countryside, the garden shed, my gateway to freedom, a crucifix, years of catechism.

La Saunerie, facing south, welcomed the sun, salt being the ancient toll. Oswald Bouteille, father of a canal fed by the Durance which flows along the Valensole plateau. The victory of the central square and the tower that dominates the town. My symbols of adventure, of knights, of heroic soldiers in the light of the rising sun, they descended the Durance towards the sea....

The clock gate, the summer decorations in the streets of the town centre, the tower on the hill, the town hall flag. So many symbols that resonate in novels, adventure films, spy thrillers and romances. Sparks that become ideas, projects and projections into the future.

Architecture, water management, industrial design, esotericism, biotechnology.... A contemporary Leonardo da Vinci workshop atmosphere. Energies linked to innovation, creation, research, understanding mysteries and solving enigmas.

Here we can witness the birth of an emotion, that of passion. It will develop, building on solid foundations, amplify and invade the territory. Then it will cross borders without stopping.

Razor-sharp light, colours, textures, form, a delicate, caressing harmony, strength and tenderness, an idea of infinite love, of endless happiness. The perfect balance that makes worlds and stars turn, without friction, without clashes.

A salute to the sun shimmering in the water through a curtain of leaves... All the energy you need to leave the world of dreams and start a new day. As a child or teenager, before opening the shutters, I used to imagine that the view would be different, that the sun would be right in front of me... But invariably, I saw the Mont d'Or tower.

The square is surrounded by facades, but if you look twice, I think the Bouteille bust is looking at the tower and its olive trees. Unless he's trying to find out what's going on behind the windows and shutters. A library of slices of life.

Songer, réfléchir, penser à ce que l’on ne voit pas. Aller au bout de la rue ou grimper le long des façades. Glisser vers le passé ou imaginer le futur. On peut rester assis des heures tout en faisant de nombreux et longs voyages dans d’autres lieux, dans d’autres mondes.

The mix is as eclectic as a Prévert inventory. A music that twirls and carries with it solar, telluric and stellar energies. In this way, strange worlds are linked and passages are opened.

A victory over space and time. When geometric order makes planes dance and the scale of time shuffles its rungs, new doors open onto unknown fields that invite us to travel through our reflections in a new light.

Ancient energies. And yet it is an iron pyramid that sits in Sicily on the 38th parallel. The columns are the beginnings of a copy of the Parthenon, built in Edinburgh as a tribute to Scottish soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. But lavender has been used since ancient Egypt, one of my passions since I was a teenager...

Light alone can make façades shine when it is low and full of gold, or create arcs of colour simply by dancing with the drops of water. True alchemy. Like the black and purple olives that produce an oil with inimitable greens. Iris flowers are fascinating, but in pharmacy, it's the rhizomes hidden in the soil that are used. All this is natural for children, and remains so for some of us...

Dawn or dusk? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Between dog and wolf, some might say. In its own way, this in-between, this no-man's-land between day and night, also seems to freeze time and liberate the imagination, giving what we're looking at a surreal touch.

Temple dedicated to Cybelle, then church in the 5th century destroyed by the Saracens and rebuilt in the 10th century. The campanile, built over a 13th-century doorway, dates from the 19th century. The tower is a remnant of the 974 castle. The various eras intermingle, creating a treasure hunt for archaeologists and historians. On the other hand, for artists and writers, it's a rich and fertile breeding ground for imagination and creativity.

The pastels of late autumn and lines that guide our thoughts skywards as the sun's disc descends over the horizon. The atmosphere is at once melancholy and tender, charged with light, enveloping, reassuring vibrations, conducive to calm and letting go.

What if the tower was a water tower? What if the gutters filled water boxes that fed the fountains and other water jets? The Chinese puzzle whispers of the lantern that no longer has its light, now a day lantern, floating at the end of a wire instead of flying away. Symbols stand the test of time, but sometimes their meaning changes.

The light of sunset that bathes the radiant Victory in the light of the heroes of the Great War and those of the Resistance a little further on. The light of the rising sun illuminating the bell tower and bouncing off the facades and foliage of the old town centre. And the lanterns are there, a signature feature of this ode to the light of Provence.

A series of snapshots. A vestige, narrow streets, a fountain, lavender and poppies, we're in Provence. A coat of arms with 4 hands, Manus Quartus, meaning Four Hands, or Manuesca in the Middle Ages, which could be the origin of the name Manosque. There are also four gates, at the four cardinal points, opening onto the old centre, which was surrounded by ramparts. And there were 4 districts. These memories form a sort of identity photo.

The cold, this statue by Bloche, in the Louvre, then the Musée du Luxembourg, in Manosque since 1965 but now the property of the Musée d'Orsay... In my memory, they were 2 little old men and I couldn't understand why they were talking about the cold when the statue is in the sun most of the day. So I imagined all sorts of adventures during their long lives. And in the end, it's a young couple whose energies are in tune with today's society...

One is a huntress, the other a waterkeeper. Two pillars of Provence's literary heritage. Like a nod to Pagnol in the city of Giono. Both were literary and cinematic monsters. But even if they shared common territories, their visions were different.

The Salt Gate, the Gate of the Rising Sun, the main street. This is the recurring image that comes to mind whenever I think of this city. I say this because my roots are further away, geographically speaking. Part of them are in the north of Italy, and another in the centre of the Mediterranean, on the island of Malta..

The final stage of this reunion. Everything is in the light. Gathered. The land is ready to welcome new projects, new dreams and to bring old memories back into the light, whatever their burden, the light is there to dissolve the storms and deep shadows...