A crossroads between art and healthcare

Biographies

• Olivia Gesbert

  Olivia Gesbert is a journalist and literary director. She now heads the renowned Gallimard magazine La NRF, having previously produced La Grande Table on France Culture, where she also created and hosted the literary programs En Français dans le texte and Le Book Club.

• Abraham Poincheval

  Abraham Poincheval (b. 1972, Alençon, France; lives in Marseille, France) is an insatiable explorer. Whether it’s crossing the Alps in a capsule that serves as a shelter, or locking himself away in a rock for a week, his expeditions – whether itinerant or static – require total engagement of the body. The habitable sculptures the artist designs are laboratories through which he experiments with time, confinement and immobility. They are the envelope that welcomes the performer, the object that disrupts the landscape and exists through the stories of witnesses.
  Abraham Poincheval’s works and performances are regularly the subject of exhibitions and invitations in France and abroad. In 2017, the Palais de Tokyo invited him for a solo exhibition during which two new performances led him to experiment with the temporalities of the animal and mineral kingdoms(Pierre and Œuf). The Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (FR), the Institut d’art contemporain – IAC, Villeurbanne (FR), La Criée, center d’art contemporain, Rennes (FR), the MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR), the FRAC Paca, Marseille (FR) and the Domaine de Chamarande (FR), among others, have recently devoted solo exhibitions to him. In 2019, he will be taking part in the 15th Lyon Biennial (FR), where his film Walk on Clouds will be shown for the first time. His works are held in the collections of Musée Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL), Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (FR), Centre national des arts plastiques – CNAP, Paris (FR), Musée-Forum de l’Aurignacien, Aurignac (FR), MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine (FR), Musée d’art du Valais, Sion (CH), MAHF, Fribourg (CH) and FRACs Corse, Franche-Comté, Limousin, Occitanie and PACA (FR). His performance “Chevalier errant, l’homme sans ici” can be seen in the exhibition “Don Quichotte. Histoire de fou, histoire d’en rire” presented at the Mucem from October 15, 2025 to March 30, 2026.

• Gurshad Shaheman

  Gurshad Shaheman trained at the École Régionale d’Acteurs de Cannes et Marseille (ERACM). He also holds a Master II in Comparative Literature from Paris VIII on the translation of Persian poetry. As an actor, assistant director and Persian translator, he has worked with Thierry Bédard, Reza Baraheni, Thomas Gonzalez and Tatiana Julien. Since 2012, Gurshad has been writing and interpreting his own performances. In 2015, he finalized his trilogy, Pourama Pourama, and in 2018, he created at the Avignon Festival, Il pourra toujours dire que c’est pour l’amour du prophète, a show written from the stories of LGBT refugees from the Middle East. In 2019, he will set up his company, La Ligne d’Ombre, in the Hauts-de-France region. In 2020, Gurshad will be associated with the Théâtre Les Tanneurs in Brussels, where he will create Silent Disco, a civic project with young people at odds with their families. In France, he is associated with Le Manège, scène nationale de Maubeuge, Théâtre de l’Union CDN de Limoges, Quais CDN d’Angers, Théâtre de la Bastille in Paris, and CDN d’Orléans. He is also supported by Le Phénix, scène nationale de Valenciennes and Maison de la Culture d’Amiens. In 2021, he wrote and directed Les Forteresses. The book won the Prix de la Librairie Théâtrale and the Prix Koltes from the Théâtre National de Strasbourg in 2022. Gurshad is also behind Cabarets Dégenrés, a festive annual event created at Confluences in Paris and later moved to Point Ephémère. In 2022, he wrote Pour que les vents se lèvent – Une Orestie, performed at the TNBA in Bordeaux and directed by Catherine Marnas and Nuno Cardoso. Winner of the Mondes Nouveaux call for projects in 2023, he created Jadis, lorsque mon cœur cassa, a sound and floral installation based on the stories of people undergoing psychiatric treatment. The project was produced in partnership with the Centre des Monuments Nationaux at the Monastère Royal de Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse. In 2024, he co-directed Sur tes traces with Dany Boudreault for the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels. As a teacher, Gurshad teaches at ERACM, ESTU Limoges, TNS and the Belgian branch of the Cours Florent in Brussels. His texts are published by Les Solitaires Intempestifs.

• Tolten

  Tolten (Thomas Rime) is a clinical psychologist who has been practicing slam poetry for over 20 years. He is also a musician. He has published Les maux et les phrases et autres nouvelles du soin and L’être ange monde (Champ Social), and has spoken at over 150 conferences and symposia with his sound sketches. He runs writing workshops in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, kindergartens, secondary schools, Institut Médico-Éducatif, Institut Thérapeutique Éducatif et Pédagogique, ESATs, SESSADs, SAVSs, with patients, care teams and media libraries. He is also an instructor for the Diplôme Universitaire d’animateur et d’animatrice d’atelier d’écriture at the University of Aix-Marseille. www.tolten.org