guided tour - rallumer les étoiles, sara ouhaddou

The texts presented below were written by the artist herself. Offering a poetic account of the exhibition itinerary, Sara Ouhaddou guides the visitor through the discovery of her works, and presents the reflections and inspirations that accompanied their creation.

My project for Aigues-Mortes is rooted in the story of the Protestant women imprisoned in the Tower of Constance. From this background, I developed a reflection on the different forms of confinement - physical, social and intimate - which, although rooted in history, still resonate deeply in our contemporary lives.

By observing the women around me - craftswomen, family members, friends - I became aware of the persistence of these states of confinement, but also of the forms of silent resistance they generate. Everyday gestures, often invisible, become means of transmission, care and survival.

I'm interested in these simple, repeated gestures, which are sometimes insignificant but profoundly structuring. They help to maintain continuity, circulate knowledge and preserve forms of memory, even in contexts of constraint.

Through this project, I'm seeking to bring together different forms from craft traditions, such as glass and textiles, to explore these gestures and their ability to survive over time. The objects that emerge, often linked to childhood or everyday life, carry with them attentions, beliefs and memories.

To structure this research, I used a cosmic metaphor: the stars. Their birth, disappearance, light and persistence become ways of thinking about human gestures. Like the stars, these gestures appear, circulate and leave traces, sometimes invisible, but continuing to act.

This project does not seek to produce a fixed narrative, but to make perceptible the fragility and the power of these transmissions, because what persists can also disappear, and with it, an essential part of what connects us.

Where the stars are born, is there any trace left?

Garland: steel, blown glass beads, torch beads

28 m

This work takes the form of a large garland measuring almost thirty metres, evoking the birth of the stars - an enigma for our human eyes.

It echoes the birth of gestures: those that give shape to the objects that women make for their loved ones - their children, their family. Gestures that are often invisible, but fundamental. What interests me here is their origin. Is it love, care, the instinct to protect, or simply the need to survive - for oneself, for others?

And once that first gesture has appeared, what happens to it?

What trace does it leave behind?

How does it travel through time and space, transforming and transmitting itself until it reaches us?

The Derb Dabachi showcase

Glass, brass, copper and glass animal

Courtesy Polaris Gallery, 2023-2024

41.5 x 42 x 42 cm

This work is a reflection on the way in which products are presented for sale: I'm looking at the ways in which crafts are presented in the face of the boom in tourism. In this context, many craftspeople adopt the codes of commercial presentation - standardised shop windows, an accumulation of objects, accentuated lighting - while others choose to turn away from them or play on them. These shifts create a shift in the perception of identical objects, revealing a profound transformation in the reading and reception of craft forms.

Aigues-Mortes seemed an ideal place to experiment with this approach. This single showcase features a figure that is both distant from the real environment of the monument and emblematic of its historical imagination: the dragon. A fascinating animal of the collective unconscious, it acts here as a revealer of the narratives, fantasies and projections that accompany the staging of objects and territories.

Les mains fertiles #2

Amulet animals, glass

Between 7 and 12 cm per animal

The former bread oven in the Tour de Constance is home to a family of glass animals, all created by women to protect children. In North Africa, women make these little terracotta animals in their bread ovens, from the leftovers of the earth they use for their work.

Throughout the Mediterranean basin, many women share this tradition: when they make functional objects for everyday use - in terracotta or carved wood - they sometimes extend their gesture by creating small animal figures for their children. These forms, which are both playful and protective, often represent the animals in their immediate environment.

These ancient gestures have an essential function: to protect, to love, to care for. These familiar figures transmit attentions, beliefs and forms of knowledge that are deeply rooted in the land.

Where the stars disappear, is there any trace left?

Garland: steel, blown glass beads, torch beads, 6 m

Animal amulets: glass, between 7 and 12 cm per animal

The star crosses space to become extinct elsewhere - sometimes in the sky, in the form of a shooting star, sometimes on the ground, where it becomes a fragment, a stone, a vestige. A tangible trace of a distant phenomenon.

In the sky, it is even more elusive: a brief, almost magical apparition to which we associate a wish. As children, we wait for these fleeting moments, as if their disappearance could grant a wish.

This disappearance echoes what a gesture leaves behind. An attention, a moment, a presence - sometimes barely conscious - that nevertheless leaves a lasting impression on us. Some objects carry this memory, not because of what they are, but because of the gesture from which they came. They become the repositories of an affection, a care, a bond.

The work presented in this piece showcases these forms: objects made for children - animals, garlands, suspended presences - whose precise memory fades with time, but whose initial attention persists, intact and unmatched, even when the object comes undone, gets damaged or disappears.

Where the stars appear, what does their light reveal?

Garland: steel, blown glass beads, torch beads, 6 m

Stained glass windows: 102 x 77 cm and 87 x 76 cm

There is the star itself, and then there is its light.

Its brilliance, its diffusion - what actually reaches us. It is this light that makes it visible, but also elusive and almost unreal.

What interests me here is what this light reveals.

In the same way, in a gesture that is transmitted, there is not just the act. There is everything that surrounds it: the shared moment, if it takes place; the presence of the person doing it; their perseverance, their beliefs, their attention, their care. So many elements that are often invisible, but which accompany the gesture and are transmitted with it, in an immaterial way.

These works take the form of a rolled-up garland, not yet unfurled, standing in that suspended moment just before its revelation - like a star before it becomes visible - and stained glass windows activated by daylight. They summon up the art of storytelling, the tale being an elusive form of transmission: it circulates, transforms, adapts and resists. Its strength lies precisely in this ability to escape. I wanted to make this power visible: the power of a transmission that cannot be contained but persists.

These stained glass windows are a tribute to the poet Mririda n'Aït Attik, who has accompanied my installations for several years. Through her, song and poetry appear as powerful forms of transmission, of which she is an exemplary figure. In this particular iteration, the stained glass windows take up the exterior landscape of the ramparts and integrate it into the poem.

Set design: wood, embroidered cushions

Where the stars remain, what is left of their light?

Garland: steel, blown glass beads, torch beads, 6 m

An animal amulet: 1 bear

I'm thinking here of the stars we all know, the ones we learn to recognise and observe: the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the North Star. They have always accompanied human travel, serving as landmarks, compasses and, over time, symbolic and spiritual guides. The constellations are as much a part of our imaginations as they are of our lives.

These stars have been watched, used and passed on for centuries, playing an essential role. Today, however, new technologies and light pollution are gradually rendering them invisible. They remain, but we can no longer see them.

So what will be left of their light for us?

What do we lose when they disappear from our horizon?

This reflection echoes the gestures and objects that have accompanied our lives - in particular those fashioned by women for their loved ones - which are tending to disappear in our contemporary societies.

What matters to me is not so much that they are disappearing as that we are no longer able to see them. By neglecting them, by making them invisible, we risk losing them, even though they have profoundly structured our ways of being and living.

This work is a reminder of the fragility of these presences, because what persists can still disappear, and with it an essential part of what connects us.

The Thousand and One Nights

Stained glass: 125.8 x 76 cm

This work is a nod to Scheherazade, the storyteller of the Thousand and One Nights, where storytelling becomes a gesture of resistance. Through words, she suspends time, postpones the inevitable and creates a space where life can continue to exist.

Through this figure, I question the place of storytelling as a fragile but essential form of transmission, like the stars we no longer see, or the gestures we forget. Like them, stories persist, circulate and transform, even when they become invisible. They are what pass through time, and despite everything, continue to make their mark.

For over a century, the Centre des monuments nationaux (CMN) has brought together the largest network of sites and monuments in France, from prehistory to the present day.

Drawing on the wealth of this common heritage, the diversity of its sites and the expertise of its teams, it works every day to conserve, reveal and pass on this natural and cultural heritage to all audiences. By bringing together history, art and culture, it makes its monuments places of knowledge, creation, emotion and sharing that help to strengthen social ties.

ARTIST

Artist : Sara Ouhaddou

CENTRE DES MONUMENTS NATIONAUX

President: Marie Lavandier

Managing Director: Kevin Riffault

Deputy Director General: Guillaume Lachaussée

Director of cultural development and visitors: Hélène Amblès

Head of Cultural Events: Christophe Potet

Deputy Head of Cultural Events: Alice Pineau

Exhibition Project Manager: Julie Delacotte, assisted by Pauline Millet

Communications Director: Marie Yanowitz-Durand

For the towers and ramparts of Aigues-Mortes / CMN :

Administrator: Marie-Laure Fromont

Head of reception and surveillance: Adeline Sincholle

Administrative and financial manager: Benjamin Dingrando

And all the teams at the Centre des monuments nationaux.

PRODUCTION

Scenography and hanging of the works: Atelier Lupus

Glass artists: David Weis, Cleo Duplan, La Maison Dar Dar, Dei Rossi Luigi, Mohamed Maroufi

Stained glass artist: Couleur de verre / Marie Grillot

Garland assembly: Marie Havel

Woodworker: Hélène Demetz

Textile production: Amandine Furhmann

Graphic design: Volume Visuel / Cyril Cohen

Printed by : Arc-en-ciel, Estimprim

Catalogue text: David Berliner

Translation: Traducteo

INSTITUT FRANCAIS / MEDITERRANEAN SEASON 2026

President: Eva Nguyen Binh

General Curator of the Season: Julie Kretschmar

Project Manager: Charlotte Clary