mémoires de pierres

GEM Marseille: Mutual Support Group of Marseille. A place where people experiencing psychiatric disorders meet independently to support one another, help each other, and create together.

For three months, I worked with members of GEM Marseille on the writing of a theatrical performance exploring the memories held by stones. Together, we visited the citadel, and I shared with them the stories I knew, encouraging them to imagine others. We wove these stories together to create a site-specific, promenade-style theatre piece in which the narratives resonate with one another, sometimes feeding into each other, but also contradicting one another.

Alongside these textual and dramaturgical connections, we created a map in the form of a perspective section, on which the narratives interact and come to life.

For the 2026 European Heritage Days, we presented the creative work developed with the group to an audience of more than sixty spectators, in a performance entitled mémoires des pierres (memories of stones). Carried along by the words and gestures of the participants, the audience embarked with us on a mineral journey, blending historical facts with imaginative speculation.

Mémoires des pierres invites audiences to discover the fort from a sensitive perspective, to take the time to observe, and to investigate the traces left by the stones.

If you were a stone, which one would you be?

This work is part of the research initiated in 2025 with démocratie des pierres, entitled ROC·HES.