BRANDONS AND SAINT JOHN’S FIRES: A WORKSHOP FOR THE WINNERS OF THE DRAWING COMPETITION
School workshop
La Maison de Ma Région
Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne)
France
June 30th, 2026
This is an initiative of Eth Ostau Comengés as part of the “Creative Europe Tramontana IV” project.
Around Saint John’s Day (June 24th), Eth Ostau Comengés carries out several awareness-raising actions on this fire festival, among them school mediations, a key way of making local young people aware of the importance of keeping these traditions alive. On June 30th we were invited to the Comminges branch of the Occitanie Region to hold a workshop for the pupils of the school of Izaut-de-l’Hôtel, winners of the drawing competition organised by the PNR Barousse-Comminges-Pyrénées on the theme of the Saint John’s fires. An exhibition explained the ancient origins of the festival, its UNESCO listing, the diversity of its techniques and forms, and its links with pastoralism. The second part was devoted to primitive sounds: the children made their own whistles from Japanese knotweed, a plant that grows near water, and tried out pastoral instruments such as the conch and ox, goat and ram horns.
