(Late January – February 2026)
February is among the busiest periods at the Château de La Napoule. Between visitors, local audiences, invited artists and workshops, the rhythm of the spaces shifts almost every day. Over the weeks, the site was traversed by very different practices, drawing, listening, writing, filming, all sharing a common approach: paying attention to what happens here rather than simply observing it.
Drawing with the Body
During the last weekend of January, artist Rachel Berkowitz returned to the Château as part of Mon Week-end aux Musées! to lead Dancing Lines, a workshop inspired by Kandinsky in which participants draw not what they see, but what they feel.
The session began without pencils: first stretching, set to music, to loosen the body before the hand. For Rachel Berkowitz, painting is as much performance as dance, music is integral to her creative process.
On a large collective canvas spread across the floor, participants and families drew together, alternately using black markers, colored felt pens and paint, guided by the artist and a soundtrack ranging from Queen to Aznavour. Gestures replaced observation: spirals, rhythms, impulses. Drawing became shared movement.
For a few hours, visitors no longer looked at artworks, they experimented with their own visual language.
Nearby, her partner, actor and tattoo artist Greg Berman, set up a temporary tattoo studio. Participants left with a trace on their skin as well as on paper, a memory of a lived moment rather than a simple activity.
Listening, Sensing, Writing
A few days later, the gardens became a sensory field of exploration with poet and artist Stéphanie Filion, in dialogue with the exhibition by Cynthia Imogen Hammond.
Participants searched for nearly invisible sounds: wind, fountains, vegetation.
They mapped the scents of mimosa and the gardens.
They wrote from what usually escapes attention.
For Valentine’s Day, her poetry machine offered each visitor a unique text, the intimate trace of a brief encounter. Here again, the experience was not about learning something about the site, but about living it differently.
Opening Reception in the Rain
On February 13, over a hundred people braved the rain to discover Les Jardins de Marie – Kingdoms within kingdoms by Canadian artist Cynthia Imogen Hammond.
The evening took place in the presence of the artist and Henry Clews, descendant of the Château’s founders. Visitors moved between paintings, sketches and archival materials, constantly shifting from historical images to contemporary painted interpretations.
The exhibition draws on research conducted in the archives and in the gardens themselves. Birds once observed, animals present today, remembered stories and still-visible landscapes all appear to belong to the same time: the time of the place.
A garden-inspired buffet prepared by chef Myriam of Comptoir de Myriam echoed the exhibition with vegetal colors, mimosa and candlelight, extending the experience beyond the galleries.
The evening then shifted outdoors: from the Château, fireworks announcing the Mimosa Festival gathered visitors and locals facing the sea. The exhibition opened at the very moment the city entered celebration.
Filming the Margins
A few days after the opening, filmmaker and former resident Dan Popa returned to the Château to present his short film Jeux de correspondance, co-directed with Hoda Adra.
Shot during the Paris Olympic Games, the film rarely shows competitions, instead observing what happens around them, waiting, movement, conversations, suspended moments between events.
The screening discreetly extended the exhibition’s questions: how to document a place or moment without freezing it, how to capture an atmosphere rather than a fact.
Listening to the Site
On February 22, the Château will host sound designer Shawn Pinchbeck as part of the festival Les Visiteurs du Soir.
During his 2024 and 2025 residencies, the artist recorded waves, footsteps, bells and spatial resonances to compose an immersive work from the site’s sonic identity.
After gesture, writing and image, the place continues to be explored through sound.
Over the month, the Château was crossed by gestures, words, images and sounds, different ways of inhabiting the same place without exhausting it.
The exhibition Les Jardins de Marie – Kingdoms within kingdoms by Cynthia Imogen Hammond remains on view until March 1st.
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