Nantes hosts a marionette workshop called "Les Machines De L'ile" that you can visit.
It's a place where they make fantastic and incredible marionettes, ranging from the size of a bird all the way up to le grand éléphant de Nantes, which is about 3 times the size of a normal elephant and is fully mobile.
Rather than take my own pictures, here's a picture taken from a google search of it that conveys really well how striking it is:
For almost ten years, the workshop was working towards a fantastic goal called "The Heron Tree" which was to be a giant metal tree full of real greenery plus animated and animatronic creatures that you could wander through and climb.
This poster conveys well the feeling and aesthetic they were pursuing:
It was an incredible idea but the funding fell apart a couple of years ago, and it looks like it'll pass into obscurity soon.
If you get the chance to visit Nantes now, and see what they were building towards, I recommend it. I took pictures but I don't want to post them here and give anyone the impression they've seen all the cool things the workshop has to offer, so if you're interested in seeing more about the marionettes and animatronics of the workshop, send me a message on Signal and I can show them to you directly.
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