Carrieres de Lumieres

The quarry supplied building stone until it closed in 1935, leaving a series of rectangular chambers with vertical walls up to about fourteen metres and flat floors, an accidental architecture. Jean Cocteau filmed The Testament of Orpheus here in 1959, and from 1977 the space was used for projected image shows; since 2012 it has run large annual programmes projecting a single artist's work over every surface, walls, floors and pillars, set to music, with visitors walking through the moving images. Roughly a hundred projectors are used. Shows have covered Van Gogh, Klimt, Chagall, Cezanne and others, changing each year.

What's there

• The quarry chambers - flat walls up to fourteen metres used as screens.
• The projected programme - one artist's work covering every surface.
• The floor images - projections underfoot as well as overhead.
• The Cocteau connection - the quarry as a film set in 1959.

When to go

Year-round; the venue closes for a few weeks in January between programmes. It stays around fourteen degrees inside whatever the season, which makes it a good hot-day option.

Before you go

It is cold inside and there is no seating beyond a few benches, so the show is watched standing or walking. It is crowded and echoing in summer. The experience is spectacle rather than art history.

Nearby

Les Baux-de-Provence is a short walk uphill; Saint-Remy lies north.

Key facts