Régis POULET
President of the International Institute of Geopoetics
Kenneth White is one of the few people who changed the course of my life.
The trust and friendship he granted me from our first meeting, which only grew until his last moments, allow me to fight for three years to ensure that his wishes, whether strictly testamentary or intellectual, are respected, against all embezzlement and all betrayal.
The "Gwenved Affair" — from the name of the house that Kenneth White wanted to turn into a residence for artists and writers — crystallizes many elements on which I will not have the time to elaborate today. Let us say that it is a question of respect for demanding thought, geopoetics, and its inventor.
I have been applying this requirement to myself and often to others since 2013. I do not intend to change it.
The International Institute of Geopoetics, which has been in existence since 1989, carries with it the seeds of a powerful transformation of the world. What we learned from Kenneth White and from geopoetics is that in any place, our relationship to the world and our relationship to others are at stake. The safeguarding of the White house is more than a gesture to safeguard a heritage, it is a gesture to save a living place of culture, so that it can still serve as a home of culture.
Faced with the declared risk of selling Gwenved, I took the initiative, after discussion within our institution, to launch a petition to prevent the sale and bring about the project of an artists’ and writers' house, which is about to be buried under artificial flowers and ceremonies. The line defended is simple: scrupulously respect the wishes clearly expressed by Kenneth White. Widely heard in France and abroad (in about fifty countries), it arouses resistance among those who, with the death of Kenneth White, seem to have interests other than the posthumous defense of their family. This resistance has taken a decidedly polemic turn after we have issued a legal reminder to those who, here as elsewhere, intend to appropriate everything. The newly declared association led by MM. Dall'aglio (president) and Bigeard (secretary) are in breach of the intellectual rights of the International Institute of Geopoetics (IIG). Followed by a long, clumsy, and defamatory diatribe from them directed at the president of the Institute to delegitimize Kenneth White’s project: the "Open Letter to the signatories of the petition 'No to the sale of Kenneth White’s house—Yes to his artist-run house project" signed by Stéphane Bigeard.
Being taken seriously with serious accusations, I will defend myself while never losing sight of the hidden intention behind this malice.
It is not insignificant that the bearer of gossip is a former close collaborator.
For the convenience of reading, I will follow, as far as possible, the thread of the "Open Letter" of Mr. Bigeard, while providing, when it will clarify his words and attitude, details about the facts and the words of my detractor.
TO LEGITIMIZE
The "Open Letter" begins with five paragraphs where Mr. Bigeard recalls his achievements in the vicinity of Kenneth White and geopoetics. Nothing to contest other than the absence of references to my contribution to them. If he was secretary of the Institute, it is because I asked him to. A second version of his "Dictionnaire de géopoétique" was put online, he writes, on the website of the Institute (in 2015). Considering since 2013 that there is no small task to defend what one believes in, I remind him that it was me who put it online in its entirety, article after article. I add to his list that I allowed him to publish a few articles in my file "Kenneth White" (la Revue des Resources) and suggested that he give a lecture fueled by his passion for books at the first Rencontres géopoétiques de Trébeurden in 2023. Simple maybe forgotten... The list will stop there. It is however indisputable, although he does not speak about it, that he has, as a bibliophile, built up a beautiful personal collection of books and documents on Kenneth White and that this subject fascinates him. Between 1991 and 2026, the stated years of his geopoetic activities, it’s still modest. Interesting, but modest. More than to claim to have been an intimate of Kenneth White. I reminded him, when he boasted (as in his last letter) of knowing what Kenneth White wanted, that the latter did not consider him that way and that it was for example on my insistence that the poet received him at home in 2023.
FROM THE PARALOGISM TO THE ELUCUBRATION
Mr. Bigeard likes dictionaries. Opening one to check the difference between the vindictive spirit he attributes to me and the indignation that drives me would have made him take a step towards understanding the situation. This would have been even more necessary to avoid the grotesque accusation of autocratism. The autocrat is, as a reminder, "a person whose absolute authority is undisputed," and "who arbitrarily exercises absolute power." Not only do the members of the association not always agree with their president and let him know, but the very notion of absolute power is contradicted by the functioning of the Institute. There is neither tyranny nor a yes-god at the IIG. There is someone who gives direction. Need I remind you that since 2013, I have put my mandate on the line every two years, after submitting a detailed moral report and financial report, and that I was re-elected without difficulty?
Stéphane Bigeard claims to be well acquainted with the functioning of the IIG but, as I have often noticed, he is confused and imprecise. Thus, proclaiming himself "guarantor of the associative statutes," he would have instructed me to appoint a board of directors in 2024 "in accordance with the statutes of the association." Ignorance, amnesia? As far back as we go, and contrary to what he claims, the IIG had an office (president, secretary, treasurer) included in a board of directors (CA) with up to seven people. This is still the case. Any member can check it with the minutes of the General Assembly. As in other institutions, people move on and functions remain. At present, the IIG still consists of a board with an office. If members have left it recently, it is not for the reasons put forward by S. Bigeard who imagines himself as embodying a current of protest. The first member to leave, after discussion with me, highlighted his general reservations about collective commitment and major personal concerns. The second was a close friend of Mr. Bigeard, who had brought him in with him when I proposed that he become a secretary in 2021. Friendly but very little active, he left by claiming indeed not to have enough time to devote to the Institute. The last member, for his part, was tired of seeing that the White money from which IIG could have benefited for its projects was no longer there—despite my request, as soon as I renounced it in June 2025, that the other legatee should pay to the Institute the share that belonged to me as heir.
In 2025, when one of the board members, Mr. Delplanque, was delegated, at his request, to explore the possibilities of making a "Kenneth White Geopoetic House" in the Pyrenees, and more specifically in Pau, this was done on the basis of trust, dedication, and personal initiative. We were kept informed whenever he wanted. And he did a lot, without boasting about it, unlike Mr. Bigeard who not only found it difficult to devote himself to his task as secretary (hence my reminders) but who now comes to show off his meager record.
In 2024 and 2025, when board members decide to organize exhibitions in tribute to Kenneth White, we do not vote on it. We trust each other. From April 13 to 28, 2024, Mr. Delplanque organized an event in Joyeuse (Ardèche), and invited me to give a conference. Mr. Legrand, treasurer, organized from April 18 to June 20, 2025 another event in Plouzané (Finistère). I also went there to give a conference. We trusted and we were right.
Mr. Bigeard confuses modest devotion with a taste for secrecy. As I am primarily concerned about the future of Gwenved, I kept the other reliable member of the office informed throughout 2024 and until 2025, who accompanied me and supported me in certain steps to preserve Gwenved from various appetites.
RELIABILITY AND FALLIBILITY
When I compare the work of secretary Mr. Bigeard to the dedication and efficiency of his predecessor (2013-2021) and, already, his successor (2025-), I affirm my relief that he resigned. Having to follow up regularly to get a task done is not normal. When you create expectations, you then have to live up to them. I will take the example of the "Secondes Rencontres Géopoétiques Kenneth White" which were held, at the request of Mr. Bigeard, in his city of Arc-et-Senans, in September 2025. Puzzled about the choice of venue, I listened to his argument: he knew the right people, he would be on site to take care of our event as closely as possible. After visiting with him, I accepted his proposal and we launched our project. But from the moment Mr. Bigeard turned his back on me, it became more difficult. Since I was worried, as we will see, about the technical means to be implemented for our conferences, readings, and concerts, and nothing was happening, I was more insistent in the week before the event. Three days before this one, Mr. Bigeard threatened to drop everything if I didn’t stop my follow-ups. As a result, the records we intended to offer are unusable because the monitoring of the technical installation was not done correctly. I don’t even mention the inconvenient lack of heating, which a local resident should have anticipated. To top it off, the secretary boycotted the conferences and the group meal on Saturday night.
STAY TRUE TO THE MOMENTUM
In a brief burst of self-criticism, M. Bigeard declares to take all his "share of responsibility" in the incompletion of the Ardèche project, which he chooses as point of comparison with Gwenved. Nevertheless, I suggest that Mr. Bigeard make another effort. Always inclined to lecture, he not only points out his doubts (who had none?) about the project’s feasibility, but also states that he has invested in it "entirely from 2022 to 2023." Here as elsewhere, this statement should not be taken literally. The tasks had been distributed and, along the road strewn with obstacles, Mr. Bigeard had reassured us a little by saying that he knew who to contact to access patronage. Another one-track statement.
My role was to convince a world-renowned Chilean architect, Cazú Zegers, from the Chilean Center for Geopoetic Studies, to design a building with geopoetic architecture that would house a conference room, a media library, and a museum—under the direction of Kenneth White: "La Maison géopoétique Kenneth White" (and not, Mr. Bigeard, the "House of geopoetics", let’s not ignore K. White). Through persuasion, Mrs. Zegers agreed to volunteer the plans and rendering of a draft project she sent me in 2024, which I shared with the board and presented publicly at the Rencontres géopoétiques in September 2025. Of course, this project has not yet found funding and may never find it, but it has the merit of existing as a visible example of what can be a geopoetic house designed according to a geopoetic architecture. The sorrowful and pusillanimous spirits will laugh (they do not hesitate), but it is still better than the "Norman Project" of 2008, of which Mr. Dall'aglio would have been the salaried director [1].
Except to bring discredit on the project at Gwenved that Kenneth White confided to the IIG, it is necessary to have a good confidence to compare the two and to write that "the president of the IIG, in front of the wall of reality, accepts completely to give up one last wish of Kenneth White". From someone who gave up quite quickly on the Ardèche project and now pleads to abandon that of Gwenved, there is no shortage of spice. I count for nothing the irony about "the wall of reality" addressed to the one who has been fighting for three years for the last wishes of a friend whom he has not let down. Resentment makes a lot of nonsense. Citing Kenneth White as soon as he can is very good—except in this unfortunate use of the titles of his books, “drifts into Ardèche,” etc. to serve one’s attack—when one understands what one is quoting. Kenneth White’s possibilism is not based on the pragmatism of "common sense" but on a non-radical prelude to an affirmation of life, courage, and creative intelligence.
Mr. Bigeard’s open letter is constructed to accuse me, among other things, of being an autocrat, and thus justify his decision to resign, which he notified me in early 2025. But he had another motivation: to take the side of his friend Emmanuel Dall'aglio, who at that time became a potential legatee of the Whites, even though he told me several times (the last time before a notary and lawyer) between April 2024 and April 2025 that he did not want to be one. From the beginning of 2025, S. Bigeard therefore expressed to me his hostility and his desire to resign. It is easy to understand that I prioritized my relationships with the other members of the Board.
As for me, I was puzzled by the fact that Mr. Dall'aglio was not Marie-Claude’s guardian despite his promise to Kenneth White. Between the end of 2023 and March 2025, I therefore took care, most often remotely, of watching over Marie-Claude, so much so that I was the contact person for her caregivers. Upon his death, Mr. Dall'aglio asked me to take care of everything for the funeral, which seemed consistent with his desire to withdraw from the estate. So I was the only one at the funeral to pay tribute to our former secretary of the IIG, especially to our former friend. Shortly after, Mr. Dall'aglio called me to tell me that, all things considered, he wanted to inherit "for Marie-Claude."
This is an opportunity to respond to other defamatory remarks: I would confuse my private interests with those of the Institute and I would be interested. Let it be judged.
In 2013 (I did not yet know Mr. Dall'aglio), the Whites drafted a will where he was the first to inherit, and me by default. In 2016, they did the same with their life insurance: Mr. Dall'aglio, then me. In 2017, they amended their wills and put us on a par; we are co-legatees. In 2023, Kenneth White writes a new will where neither Mr. Dall'aglio nor I inherit anything anymore. From then on, Mr. Dall'aglio recognizes me as the sole executor of Kenneth White’s will. I am not an heir and that suits me very well because I’m not interested in money. Nor am I interested in power. But doing projects, yes.
Mr. Bigeard claims that I refused a hand extended by Mr. Dall'aglio when he offered to be my "sleeping partner," the day he told me he had changed his mind, shortly after Marie-Claude White’s funeral. In other words: I should have left everything (work, life at the other end of France) and to trust the person who had told me for almost two years that she didn’t want to take care of anything, who was offended that we thought she would not keep her word and give up the estate so that the project could be carried out under the conditions set by Kenneth White, and who, at the last moment, changed his mind? I am wiser than that. Instead, I told him that if he didn’t want to help me pay the inheritance tax from the 400,000 euros he had received from Marie-Claude, I would have to give up. I told him how to take care of the house and I gave up the inheritance.
I would also like to point out that the idea of paying the lookout person in charge of running the artists’ and writers' house is a request made by Kenneth White, who insisted because it seemed obvious to him. This was only discussed in 2023, when, as I also recall, the proposal by Kenneth and Marie-Claude that we come to live in a Gwenved preserved from changes dates back to 2015.
Mr. Bigeard’s reproach is to say that I should have asked the Institute’s Board of Directors to decide whether or not I should commit my personal fortune, which in this case was insufficient, to bequeath Gwenved to the municipality? On the contrary, I did everything I could to promote the Institute and Kenneth’s wishes and not my own interest. The facts speak for themselves. That it seems incongruous or suspicious to some people says a lot about them.
THE REAL PROJECT
If we had not mobilized in large numbers by a petition, our request would have been considered with the same indifference as when we were surprised that Gwenved could be sold and that we presented ourselves, in the local press, as partners of the municipality. Since we take more seriously the voice of those who do not want us to bury Kenneth White’s project, the strategy of our opponents has changed several times.
I have been saying it publicly since I learned of the real threat facing Kenneth White’s project for Gwenved: proposals for events in tribute to Kenneth White, moving his library to an unknown location, announcements of "major projects" going round by Mr. Dall'aglio in the local press, a project that contradicts itself from one speech to another—all this agitation has only one purpose: to create a diversion. Like this defamatory attack against the president of the Institute.
To cut short Mr. Dall'aglio's and Mr. Bigeard's entire argument on the practical impossibility of turning Gwenved into a writer’s house, it is necessary to explain to them, if they had overlooked it, how Kenneth White envisaged his "House of artists and writers" of a "particular genre". Mr. Bigeard prefers to describe a proposal by Kenneth White as "vague", rather than considering that he is not aware of what he wanted, as the multiple factual errors in his letter and the assumptions that become accusations attest. Yet it has been clear from the beginning, and this is the project I presented to the town hall from the very first visit: it is a matter of ensuring that Gwenved, as a living place, with its library, the Atlantic workshop, all its objects and works of art, becomes a residence for artists, writers, or even researchers who would be interested in geopoetics and the work of Kenneth White. They would come to stay there to understand them in situ in their close connection with a living place. They would have been welcomed, advised, accompanied and guided in their discovery by the lookout resident on site.
Gwenved would thus be a "Kenneth White House of artists and writers" where people interested in the work of Kenneth White and in geopoetics could reside in order to benefit not only from the resources of the library, but also from this open-world mental space, if one can say, what represents above all the Atelier Atlantique upstairs, but also the adjoining Hibou’s house, which also has its own library (with many books on art and magazines) and finally the garden, with its preserved spaces and diverse vegetation (at least three hundred species). As for the house of Kenneth and Marie-Claude White, the layout of the ground floor was particularly successful, between works of geopoetic art, beautiful crystals, reproductions of Asian prints and dream stones. Kenneth and Marie-Claude White claimed that the arrangement of any object, whether on the floor, wall or hanging, had been carefully thought out. Upstairs, Marie-Claude also had a beautiful library where all of Kenneth’s books were present, along with rarities. This desire to make the Maison des marées a home for artists and writers was publicly announced at the Premières Rencontres géopoétiques Kenneth White on July 16, 2023, and reiterated in Trégor as early as July 27, 2023, then again in Le Télégramme (March 9, 2024).
When I presented this project on site to the mayor at the end of August 2023, she found that we were "under five people’s capacity" and that this would save us a lot of work being brought up to standard. We just talked about some painting work in the owl’s house. Of course, an opening to the public, especially from Treeber, was considered. The Mayor wished that we could open the house the following year on the occasion of the 2024 Heritage Days. As for the other visits, by appointment, they would correspond to a controlled opening of the writer’s house, always accompanied by the lookout. Agreed, then the notarial disaster occurred in April 2024, which prompted the town hall to distance itself despite the acceptance of the legacy in February and to wait for the end of the estate to take over the file—no, It was not the IIG that stopped communicating with her—so there was no necessary deliberation within the IIG. Kenneth White’s real project is not the one denounced by Messrs. Dall'aglio and Bigeard. If they misunderstood, let them make amends.
This project is feasible and, with Kenneth and a few other people, we had started thinking about its practical operation in the form of a "business plan," particularly in connection with Scotland. And to respond to Mr. Bigeard’s insinuations, the 2023 will was drafted on a model proposed by the notary, with round trips between Kenneth White and the town hall, who was therefore perfectly aware of its content regarding the lookout. We also had a meeting at the town hall on February 26, 2024 (mayor, deputy, notary and myself) to discuss an agreement with a long-term lease and the distribution of expenses.
Finally, how can the spokesperson for Mr. Dall'aglio write that without money Kenneth White’s project is impossible when he left half a million euros?
HEGEMONY AND THREATS
No matter the psychological or other aspects of these attacks against those who openly defend the wishes of Kenneth White and the institute he created. What is increasingly obvious, and I want to alert you to this, is the hegemonic will of the legatee and the threats he poses to the Institute by trying to discredit its operation, the president and the mission.
In a very recent missive he sent me, Mr. Bigeard went astray to denounce my "uncontrollable hubris" (sic). Having vainly tried to make me appear as a tyrant of an association, he attacks me, I must suppose, because I do not hesitate to defend my friend’s wishes: his project in Gwenved and the role of the IIG.
If Mr. Bigeard wants to turn around and look at his new association president, he will find exactly what he is reproaching me for. Mr. Dall'aglio—and this is not the first time, in private or in the press—assured an internet journalist, just on April 30: "“To be brutal, everything belongs to me,” he asserts, aiming at the patrimonial and moral rights associated with the work.”
I am better placed than anyone else to know under what circumstances he became the legatee of these rights, and I have publicly acknowledged his rights in an update to the petition, while specifying that he was not the only one entitled to Kenneth White, Under the IIG’s previous rights regarding the use of the words "Kenneth White" and "geopoetics." But it clearly does not suit him. In the same article, the journalist states: "The legatee claims to work with the INPI "to become owner of the name Kenneth White and the word geopoetic again."
Once again, when we compare these statements to the umpteenth reproach of his spokesman who accuses me of acting as if I were "the only repository of the memory of the life and work of Kenneth White", we are stunned. I was not the one who replied to Kenneth White in July 2023, and very little made it clear that there was no way I could take care of anything for him. On the other hand, this may upset some people; it is necessary to remind them of this process of delegitimization: Kenneth White wished that I would be his successor at the head of the Institute in 2013, then he offered me in 2015 to come and live in Gwenved, He told me in 2023, during one of our daily phone conversations, that for my part, I had always been there for him (and I proved it to the end), he appointed me as executor, and he invested all his friendly and intellectual trust in me. All those who have followed the life of the Institute and Kenneth know it.
So I will reply that autocracy, or authoritarianism, should not be confused with authority. I have been devoting a very large part of my time and energy to Kenneth White and geopoetics for thirteen years, including ten years of close collaboration with him; it deserves more respect than these attacks.
Moreover, I notice that Mr. Dall'aglio intends not only to become (again?) the owner of the name ‘Kenneth White’, but also of 'geopoetic’. In fact, we can hear from him a double speech in the media (Trégor, Ouest France or Actualitté). The first is that the Institute would have the right to exist (sic), even if it recommends, in a separation that does not fail to question its understanding of the work, to deal with something else than Kenneth White. The second speech, which can already be read in the idea of phagocytosis of the "geopoetics", is relayed by its secretary and insidiously threatens this same Institute.
The first scheme is to try to discredit the one in whom Kenneth White has placed all his trust. It is then a question of putting the IIG in danger by exposing, supposedly for its own good, the risk for the latter not to obtain subsidies. (Again, it is delightful to know that Mr. Bigeard, whom we had mandated to try to find grants, quickly returned with a "times are hard" for any trophy.)
The very approach of MM. Dall'aglio and Bigeard, with their open letter that is openly addressed to the members of the Institute whose contact details Mr. Bigeard improperly used, is a step that perfectly validates the parasitism we reproach them for [2]. The end of his letter thus claims to attract our members to their association. Q.E.D.
By a gross reversal, I am accused of maneuvering and of cutting the IIG of a major project for geopoetics: the major project is that of Kenneth White, not the "immersion into the universe of Kenneth White" and its "broader scenography" (Actualitté, April 30) proposed by Mr. Dall'aglio, and which is just a spectacularization of Kenneth White’s open world that he would have hated.
DIALOGUE WITH A WALL READY?
In the same order of projections, I am accused of not being in a position of dialogue and of being responsible for a deleterious situation. The catastrophic situation is primarily due to the mistake of Kenneth White’s notary, who gave him bad advice and did his job badly. Next, about the fact that Mr. Dall'aglio did not respect his posthumous wishes, which he knew of (an email from the current legatee to three recipients dated July 25, 2023, even though he wished its execution, including the IIG and its president).
Knowing what Kenneth wanted, it would have been a betrayal to keep me quiet.
As for the dialogue, I would like to remind you that as early as February 2 (Le Trégor), I was reaching out to the municipality of Trébeurden and that I renewed this proposal for a dialogue as the bearer of Kenneth White’s wishes—without any response.
As for Mr. Dall'aglio, I am still waiting for his response to my email of June 19, 2025. But should we expect one from the person who told one of our board members that he had "no accountability to the Institute"?
From my long response to the erroneous and defamatory remarks of my former secretary, I draw several conclusions:
— first, that our struggle has already borne fruit since from a "most likely" sale (January 30, 2026) we have moved on to "everything is possible" (April 30, 2026);
— then, that the moral role of the Institute is to recall loud and clear, again and again, what were the wishes of Kenneth White;
— finally, that the real project of the "Kenneth White House of Artists and Writers" is feasible; the Federation of Writers' Houses and Literary Heritages immediately supported our initiative; she alerted the Minister of Culture and also received a response from the Trébeurden Town Hall to her letter.
But let’s not just pretend to snap our fingers to make it happen. Also, finally, I would like to address Mr. Dall'aglio directly.
Emmanuel, when in May 2025, you told me, to justify your change of heart regarding your desire to be a legatee, that only idiots didn’t change their minds, I tell myself there is hope. I thus publicly ask you, in virtue of the friendship that Kenneth and Marie-Claude once granted you, to devote the money you inherited from them (or at least my share) to the realization of the "Kenneth White House of artists and writers" and to the Institute to which he wished to give it. You know perfectly well that this money wasn’t meant for you any more than it was for me.
[1] This Norman project: "Ecology, sustainable development, geopoetics" — was taken over as is in 2026 for Trébeurden, but the world has changed!
[2] Volunteering does not change the case, because using the resources of any association to promote another competing one is parasitism. In its judgment dated February 16, 2022, the French Court of Cassation recalled that "the action in parasitism, based on Article 1382, now 1240, of the Civil Code, which implies the existence of a fault committed by one person to the detriment of another, may be implemented regardless of the legal status or activity of the parties, whenever the perpetrator is in the victim’s wake by taking unfair advantage of his efforts, know-how, reputation or investments.
