In 2019, the Association of Wards of the Public Education System of Aude (PEP 11) commissioned an artist to create a work designed to foster interaction between visitors or occasional users and the students.
The PEP 11 Association is actively engaged in promoting rights to education, health, leisure, and culture. In 2022, the association inaugurated its project for the expansion and rehabilitation of the Maison Lamourelle. Situated on the banks of the Canal du Midi, this emblematic house, notable for both its Art Nouveau façades and interior configuration, was originally conceived by the architect Léon Vassas for the ragpicker Alphonse Lamourelle. Reimagined as a cultural third-space to facilitate access to art, culture, and local heritage, the house hosts exhibitions, artist residencies, cultural outreach programmes, introductions to artistic practice and a variety of other events.
To mark this new function, PEP 11 commissioned a work of art open to the exterior, whose presence alone asserts the artistic dimension of the house, its function and its historical significance. The association aims to showcase its core activity—education for children and young people in difficulty—and to foster encounters that facilitate socialisation complementary to formal education.
Alfons Alt, the artist selected for this commission, presents Totem, installed in the courtyard of Maison Lamourelle. This three-sided photographic totem features images taken during workshops with a group of children and a cultural facilitator, brought to life through the application of pigments by hand with a brush.



