Used sheets, canvases of expression for patients
Born from a collaboration between Hôpital Renée Sabran, Musée du Niel and Lycée Golf-Hôtel de Hyères, this initiative transforms art into...
The project, led by Professor Catherine Parayre from université Brock in Canada, invited patients and hospital staff members to participate in creative writing workshops. From autumn 2025 to winter 2026, these sessions were held once a month in the storage rooms of the musée du Niel. Each workshop centered on a work from the exhibition 'L'abstraction est une couleur', which opened at the museum on May 2.
The poetic and critical texts resulting from these exchanges were then entrusted to students in the Brevet des métiers d'arts program at lycée Golf-Hôtel. They had to illustrate these writings, adopting artistic and computer graphic techniques. 'This year, the initiative has taken on an additional symbolic dimension since the works are created on used hospital sheets, recycled to become creative mediums.
The ambition of the project goes beyond a simple artistic framework. It is a human adventure that abolishes hierarchical, social, and medical barriers,' emphasizes Catherine Parayre, director of the Centre de Recherche en arts interdisciplinaires et culture créative of the Canadian university.
COLLECTIVE JOURNEY 'The cooperation between musée du Niel, hôpital Renée Sabran and lycée Golf-Hôtel is exemplarily professional on the part of the participants. Interdisciplinary and intergenerational, it connects individuals and groups of diverse backgrounds and engages them in a collective and supportive journey. This cooperation is not only a source of well-being and mindfulness in environments that pose many challenges to those who visit them, but it also contributes to unprecedented perspectives enriching intellectual dialogue,' she insists. For the high school students, the experience is just as rewarding, offering them a concrete application of their skills in a professional and human setting.
'This tripartite project is promising and beneficial for our students; it brings much more than purely disciplinary teaching. The bonds formed make it possible to grasp psychosocial skills that are essential for the development of our adolescent audience,' explains Stéphanie Lounas, the lead teacher.
Beyond creation, the workshops offer a true space of freedom and exchange, far from the strict therapeutic setting. The expertise of Justine Merri-Preira, a psychologist in the physical medicine and rehabilitation (MPR) department of the hospital, is invaluable in understanding the project's impact: 'This workshop was a deeply lively moment, where professionals and patients were able to meet differently, in a space of sharing. Through the painting, words gradually come; we dare to speak, to write poetry, to open up, to move the boundaries.
We simply find ourselves together in the experience of art.'
LIBERATION This feeling of liberation is supported by the participants. Paumeline, a patient at the Kermès pavilion, testifies: 'In the hospital and during our care pathway, we must follow rigorous procedures; there is no room for chance to succeed in our rehabilitation. When you spend the whole day making an effort, in control, working hard to find your footing, here we have the right to let go.
It is naturally destabilizing; but what a relief to finally reclaim our mind, our imagination.'
This 'breathing space' also benefits caregivers, like Thibaut Barrois, who confides: 'I let myself be carried by the benevolent wave of the collective, the freedom of the artist [...] , and I take off, I let the words dance; I let myself dance.'
The choice to paint on hospital sheets is not insignificant. It carries a heavy symbolic weight, analyzes Catherine Parayre: 'The sheet is the hospital and its number of available beds, but it is also intimacy; the only piece of cloth that accompanies us throughout our lives, from the cradle to the shroud.
It is also romantic relationships, children, dreams... the door and the imagination open once again.' Recycling these sheets in a creative process then becomes a powerful metaphor for rebirth, both physical and moral.
A way of transforming the symbol of care into an ode to life and imagination.
Ce sentiment de libération est corroboré par les participants. Paumeline, patiente au pavillon Kermès, témoigne : « À l’hôpital et dans notre parcours de soins, nous devons respecter des procédures rigoureuses, il n’y a pas de place au hasard pour réussir notre rééducation. Quand toute la journée, on est dans l’effort, dans le contrôle, on travaille dur pour retrouver nos appuis, ici on a le droit de lâcher prise. C’est déstabilisant forcément ; mais quel soulagement enfin de se réapprivoiser notre mental, notre imaginaire ». Cette « respiration » profite également aux soignants, comme Thibaut Barrois qui confie : « Je me laisse porter par la vague bienveillante du collectif, la liberté de l’artiste [...], et je décolle, je laisse danser les mots, je me laisse danser ». Le choix de peindre sur des draps d’hôpital n’est pas anodin. Il est porteur d’une forte charge symbolique analyse Catherine Parayre : « Le drap c’est l’hôpital et son nombre de lits disponibles mais c’est aussi l’intimité ; le seul morceau de tissu qui nous accompagne tout au long de notre vie du couffin jusqu’au linceul. C’est aussi la relation amoureuse, les enfants, les rêves... la porte et l’imaginaire s’ouvrent encore une fois ». Recycler ces draps dans un processus créatif devient alors une métaphore puissante de la renaissance, à la fois physique et morale. Une manière de transformer le symbole du soin en une ode à la vie et à l’imagination. •
Photos Philippe OLIVIER.