“What attracts me to this region, is of course the landscape that is by all means extraordinary, but the people are the real reason for my presence here. Without Nadine Gomez, Guy Martini, the Reservation and the farmers my presence would bare no meaning."[Andy Goldsworthy]
As a result of a joint action by two local organisations, the Grassendi Museum and the Geological Reserve, contemporary art is increasingly prominent since the mid-1990's in the natural and culture landscape of the dignois region. Sharing a passion for geology, contemporary art and the territory (both natural and human), Nadine Gomez, a conservationist at the Grassendi museum since 1988, and Guy Martin, the director and founder of the Reserve, decided to create the CAIRN, the Centre of Art for the Informal Research of Nature, in order to formalise their five year collaboration based on the development of contemporary art in and around the territory. Art Refuge is the fruit of this lucrative collaboration between a cultural player and an environmental one.