A contemporary budnik

A contemporary budnik
Matthieu Molet
Confronting the paradoxical conservation of Błędów artificial desert to the Polish history of forest exploitation for new sustainable practices.
Matthieu Molet
La Charité-sur-Loire, France
About
As an architect, researcher and teacher, Matthieu Molet seeks into history of science and technics as a landmark for resilient alternatives.
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Team members
Matthieu Molet
Field of work
Architecture, Engineering, Ecology, Film, Research
Project submitted
2026

After studying architecture, Matthieu Molet developed a multidisciplinary research approach.
Interested in the utility of form and gesture beyond architectural design, his work is structured by technical processes that allow material transformation. Their technical implementation is often limited but sufficient to set up a tension between the territory, its resources, and time, through the manufacture of utilitarian items. Close to an old if not extinct rural vision, his research is nourished by texts and illustrations describing long lost techniques or tools, as well as early scientific imagery.
Often involved in intensive experimental workshops in architectural school or residencies in an educational context, he is currently leading a master studio in Saint-Étienne School of Architecture.

This film project combines a landscape portrait, a historical fable, environmental fiction, craftsmanship and scientific research. It focuses on the man-made landscape of the Błędów desert, resulting from seven centuries of mining activities that ravaged the surrounding forests to produce timber for mine props and fuel. Nearly disappeared in 2011, it is now reduced in its size and artificially maintained.
The project explores the possibility of an alternative to those large-scale operations, through the occupation and maintenance of the site by a solitary figure. The film would therefore accompany a research process into this character’s activities and document the making of the tools required for his work: harvesting the roots to bind bundles of twigs, producing pine tar and charcoal from the trunks and roots, collecting resin to make firelighters…
All these actions formed a clear link with the budnicy, who worked in Poland’s forests between the 18th and 19th centuries to produce timber or wood-based products. Their work involved a nomadic lifestyle, constantly searching for new trees to fell, leaving behind a cleared forest. The last Bunicy settlements were disbanded in the east as they approached the Białowieża Forest.
The character in the film is a budnik of a new kind, operating within layers of complexity where his act of desertification serves to gently preserve the landscape. Starting by building a tar kiln, he gradually seeks to abandoned the use of wood as fuel to the power of sun, making pyrolysis of wood on sunny days, producing tar, charcoal and wood gas. The charcoal purifies his water and nourishes the forest soil, the gas provides light in the evening, the tar protects his home from the elements. Thus, in this film, the performance of these actions makes the production of the images possible. The aim is not to fake the activities but rather to document his technical progress, so that, beyond fiction, the project presents a plausible scenario.