Pascal Convert  Pascal Convert (born 1957) is a French visual artist. He has made sculpture, installations and videos, and has published several books. He is perhaps best known for his monument to the hostages and Resistance fighters who were shot at Mont Valérien during World War II (1939–45). Pascal Convert was born in 1957 in Mont-de-Marsan. He originally studied literature rather than art. He lives and works in Biarritz. He began to exhibit in 1984. Convert has made sculpture, installation art, video and documentaries. From 1989–90 he was resident in the Villa Medici in Rome. For many years Convert taught at a technical college in Bayonne. He is the subject of a book "La Demeure, la souche: L’Apparentement de l’artiste" (1998) by Georges Didi-Huberman. In 2002 Convert received a commission from the French state to create a monument to the hostages and French Resistance fighters shot at Mont Valérien between 1941 and 1944. The "Mémorial de la France combattante" is an important site for commemorating the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45), with a ceremony attended by the president of France held on 18 June each year. However, there was no monument to those shot at Mont Valerien, since many were foreign, Communist or Jewish. After some delay, the controversial monument was inaugurated by prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin in September 2003. Convert made a documentary film, "Mont Valérien, aux noms des fusillés" (2003). The film tells the story of the Mont Valérien monument and the "résistants" whom it honors. Convert contrasts the Mont Valérien of the Gaullist ceremonies, exalting the FFI resistance, and the place where the firing squads executed their victims. The film portrays the "résistants" in humanistic terms, as individuals who may be emulated but are not utterly different from other people. In 2007 Convert published a historical biography of Joseph Epstein ("Colonel Gilles"), a leader of the "Franc Tireurs Partisans" (FTP) in the Île-de-France who was shot at Mont Valérien in 1944. During his research he made a fourth crystal sculpture named "Le temps scellé" and a documentary film "Joseph Epstein, bon pour la légende".