In 2026, the Museums of Marseille invite Adrien Vescovi to take over the Centre de la Vieille Charité. In his most ambitious project to date, the Marseillaise artist has conceived a new installation on the scale of the monument designed by Pierre Puget in the 17th century for the chapel as well as the entire network of arcades, drawing inspiration from this exceptional site. The installation is curated by Laëtitia Olivier, Head of Exhibitions, Museums of Marseille.
The site gradually became a kind of extension of my studio. This project was built over time; it matured and today it allows me to return to something essential in my work: color, material, and surface.”
Adrien Vescovi
Following Laure Prouvost in 2025, the Museums of Marseille renew their commitment to contemporary artistic creation by inviting an artist to inhabit the Centre de la Vieille Charité and create a new work in dialogue with this historic and majestic setting. In 2026, in support of the Marseille and Mediterranean art scene, they have invited Adrien Vescovi—based in Marseille—to take over not only the chapel but also the arcades of the former hospice across its different levels, within a process of work and exhibition deliberately extended over time. Within the setting of the Vieille Charité—playing with its chapel, arcades, and shadows—Adrien Vescovi has conceived an installation as an invitation to wander. A moving, delicate, and poetic work, it connects spaces and perspectives, weaving a sensitive link between the site’s Mediterranean architecture and contemporary creation.
Vescovi’s work is rooted in a textile practice that explores the resonances of artisanal gestures. Sewing, dyeing, and modest materials become carriers of a plural memory, echoing the workshops that have long lined Mediterranean shores. At the heart of his practice lies fabric—more specifically, the sheet: a malleable element, a witness to everyday life, a repository of silent archives. Marked by time, infused with natural pigments, or shaped by the artist, it accumulates traces—from the past to those produced during its present display. Between intimacy and revelation, it carries both the fragility of human lives and the strength of the gestures that accompany them.
This installation offers a multi-layered experience: an immediate perception of dialogue with architecture, the sensory richness of materials, and the more discreet poetry of overlapping temporal strata. Through its deep engagement with the history of the Vieille Charité, it invites visitors into a passage, a suspension—a moment to experience the subtle vibration of memory within the very fibers of our world.
Inviting Adrien Vescovi to take over the site of the Centre de la Vieille Charité is like a dream come true. As if, awakening after Sleeping Like the Sun, we had imagined giving new life to this sublime site designed by Pierre Puget—making it resonate even more intensely than it already does through its museums, its multiple uses, and its present-day occupants: visitors, the curious, students, and professionals alike. As Head of Exhibitions for the Museums of Marseille, I have walked through this site daily, imagining a work that would gently touch visitors in summer, surprise them in autumn, and envelop them in winter.”
Laetitia Olivier, Head of Exhibitions, Museums of Marseille, Exhibition Curator
Adrien Vescovi ‘Sleeping Like The Sun’ is at the Centre de la Vieille Charité from 16 May 2026 to 10 January, 2027.
Dormir Comme Le Soleil – Adrien Vescovi
Les Musées de Marseille renouvellent leur soutien à la création artistique contemporaine en invitant Adrien Vescovi à s’emparer de la chapelle et des coursives du Centre de la Vieille Charité pour y créer une œuvre inédite.
L’œuvre d’Adrien s’appuie sur une pratique textile, qui explore les résonances du geste artisanal. Chez lui, couture, teinture et matériaux modestes deviennent les porteurs d’une mémoire plurielle, qui fait aussi écho aux ateliers qui jalonnent depuis toujours les rivages méditerranéens. Au cœur de son travail, le tissu – et plus précisément le drap ancien : élément malléable, témoin du quotidien, territoire d’archives silencieuses. Qu’il soit marqué par le temps, imprégné de pigments naturels ou façonné par l’artiste, il accumule les empreintes – celles du passé jusqu’à celles, accidentelles, de sa présentation actuelle. Entre intime et dévoilement, il porte en lui la fragilité des vies humaines autant que la robustesse des gestes qui les accompagnent.
Cette installation s’offrira à tous comme une expérience multiple : perception immédiate d’un dialogue avec l’architecture, sensibilité des matières, poésie plus secrète de strates temporelles qui se superposent.
Dans le dialogue profond qu’elle entretiendra avec l’histoire de la Charité, elle proposera au visiteur une traversée, une suspension, un temps pour éprouver la vibration discrète de la mémoire dans les fibres mêmes de notre monde.
Labellisée “Saison Méditerranée” Saison culturelle de l’Institut français.
Dormir comme le soleil – Adrien Vescovi, Centre de la Vieille Charité du 16 mai 2026 au 10 janvier 2027
Les commissaires: Laëtitia Olivier, responsable des expositions, Musées de Marseille
