2025 is a special year for the Artistic Observatory of the Ash-tree avenue in Trampot: twenty years after the RD 427 highway was very nearly stripped of all its trees, the Observatory's first exhibitions will take place:

• from 26 April to 25 May - exhibition of photographs by Wayne Gudmundson (vernissage on Saturday 26 April, 11 a.m., open in the afternoon and on Sundays and public holidays from 2 to 6 p.m. - free admission).

A professor emeritus of photography at Minnesota State University, American photographer Wayne Gudmundson is known for his landscape photographs, which are included in the collections of many major American and foreign institutions. Numerous exhibitions, some twenty books and documentaries have brought his work to the attention of the public, and it has been studied and commented on by leading figures in photography such as Robert Adams. Wayne Gudmundson is interested in landscapes for the marks left by man and nature and for the history they reveal. In his black-and-white photographs, which detach us from time, he excels at conveying the precision of documentary photography and the intensity of art work.

The 25 photographs on display take us to see the avenue in Trampot and nearby avenues in this part of eastern France between Nancy and Dijon.

Buy the catalogue of the exhibition, 90 pages, English and French

• from 21 June to 20 July - exhibition of the rubbings made by Constance Fulda (vernissage on Saturday 21 June 11 a.m., open in the afternoon and then on Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.; also on Saturday 28 June at the same times - free admission)

Constance Fulda, trained at the Camondo School in Paris, is a French visual artist whose works are included in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Musée de la Cité de l'Or, the Fondation Cartier and the Museum of Natural History, and are exhibited in France, India and Japan. Trees have long been a source of inspiration for Constance Fulda, with their astonishing ‘calligraphy’ that she reveals through her rubbings.

Each of the 231 rubbings on display is a poetic identity card for the ash trees in the avenue. The sheer scale of the work, stretching almost arly 120 metres, reflects the importance of the avenue.

• on 22 June, 3pm - concert by José Le Piez and Patricia Châtelain (Angeli Primitivi) - free admission

José Le Piez and Patricia Châtelain perform music with... sculptures created by José, 'Arbrassons'. Under the caress of their hands, the wood emits  enchanting sounds in an original process referenced by the National Gallery in Washington and the Ottawa Library. The duo, which has performed with musicians such as Yuri Buenaventura, Beñat Achiary and Dominique Regef, explores space, matter and sound with improvisations combining jazz, contemporary music and choreographed movements.

Among the Arbrassons, there will be two "singing" sculptures made from an ash log from the Trampot avenue, created during José Le Piez's artist residency in 2024.

• on 28 June, from 10 a.m. to noon in Moncel-sur-Vair, then from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Trampot -  workshop by David Wilmart about tree architecture and pruning (free workshop)

David Wilmart, himself a trained arborist, is in charge of arborist training at the Courcelles-Chaussy campus (Metz, eastern France)

Exhibitions, concert and workshop are free of charge.

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