Photo credit: Woven/Unwoven #4 (2015) by Sara Ouhaddou, embroidery on rubber, 102.5 × 112 cm, Collection Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, n° 2018.9.2
At the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Châteauvert, the Mediterranean is being re-examined not merely as a fixed body of water, but as a dynamic territory defined by continuous transformation, circulation, and memory. Running through November 29, 2026, the exhibition “Ciels, terres, mers, feux – Un atlas de métamorphoses” brings together the works of artists Sara Ouhaddou and Younès Rahmoun. A cornerstone of this dialogue is the loan of Woven/Unwoven #4 (2015) by Sara Ouhaddou, graciously provided by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM), which entered the museum’s collections in 2018.
Born in 1986, Ouhaddou builds her artistic practice on an intensive dialogue with the traditional craft techniques of Morocco. Working in collaboration with embroiderers from the High Atlas, she subverts and redirects conventional methods into unexpected, industrial mediums—most notably, reclaimed rubber. Spanning painting, textile, and sculpture, her work yields abstract landscapes where mineral, geological, and astral forms converge, allowing the raw material to articulate its own profound complexity.
Photo credit: Exhibition views of “Ciels, terres, mers, feux” at the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Châteauvert: Léa Bénéteau and Lorine Bermon
Woven/Unwoven #4, measuring 102.5 by 112 centimeters, exemplifies this material subversion through embroidery on rubber. By forcing ordinary commercial and industrial substances to submit to the meticulous, intimate gestures of traditional needlework, the artist interrogates fundamental notions of cultural transmission, territorial boundaries, and metamorphosis. These themes resonate deeply across the broader curatorial framework of the exhibition, positioning the Mediterranean as an interconnected archive of shared techniques and shifting landscapes.