In the courtyard of the multipurpose hall at Fort-Carré in Antibes, the tone was set: panels made by kindergarten and primary school children carried numerous messages and illustrations to draw attention to ecology. “With CASA, I commit to recycling plastic bottles,” one could read, or “Controlled landfill, limited pollution.” In the stone-built building, the three Environment Totems could be “admired.” Eight months ago, CASA (Community of Agglomeration Sophia Antipolis) asked the company Image Publique to imagine a concept to raise children’s awareness of selective sorting. To meet CASA’s expectations, the latter created the Environment Totems “a link between the sky, the earth, and all the natural elements,” explains Michel Sajn, the project’s creator. This action was carried out in close collaboration with the artist Patrick Moya.
What do these Totems look like?
Like in the Nice carnival of 2010, Patrick Moya imagined characters in the form of wire mesh. He asserts that the goal was to “create characters that contain all the messages written on colored sheets to give a kind of color patchwork.” So that they can be read, each message was displayed on giant panels: blue, yellow, green, and red. Messages expressed in children’s words, calling for the citizens’ responsibility: “Recycle, it’s helping me says the endangered earth,” “Don’t pollute the water, it’s not funny,” “Let’s recycle glass to live longer,” etc. Marie and Emma no longer remember what they wrote on their little squares of paper. The intention was there nonetheless… Hélène Ghigo, a childcare assistant, approves, like many of her colleagues, of this initiative: “it helps raise children’s awareness for a clean planet.”
The Environment Totems will continue their journey: they will be exhibited at the Valbonne media library, circulate in schools, etc. Next year, an operation of this kind might see the light again. Michel Sajn hopes such an action will be “included in an annual educational curriculum to take more account of the very involved teachers’ feedback.” 
