JUNE 3, 2025 / “L’Eau des Songes”: A summer between dream and memory in Montolieu
By Nicolas Lopez
For the third year in a row, the Toulouse-based gallery OΔK is taking over the Manufacture Royale in Montolieu with its summer event “Un Été à Montolieu”. This year, the visual artist Corinne Tichadou is the guest of this former textile factory of the eighteenth century.
The event takes place from June 7 to October 5, 2025, in the heart of the mythical book village, Montolieu. Located a few kilometres from Carcassonne, this town steeped in history invites everyone to discover this unique festival. The Dutch couple Bart and Miereke Jonge, lovers of the arts, are shaping this emblematic place into a charming house. In this way, they create a bridge between contemporary creation and the memory of this unique building.
This year, an immersive exhibition is being set up there. Entitled L’Eau des Songes, the exhibition draws its inspiration from dreams, mythology and the unconscious. The artist Corinne Tichadou invites mermaids, hybrid creatures, but also deep submerged silences. It thus anchors the visitor in a dreamlike world full of mysteries. So many ambivalent figures, oscillating between grace and anxiety, who seem to emerge from an inland sea nourished by memory, poetry and intuition. Of course, water is the common thread of this exhibition. She takes us into a sensory world, both archaic and intimate, into a fluid of origins, emotions and metamorphoses.
By bringing together architectural heritage and visual poetry, the OΔK gallery pursues its ambition: to create living bridges between today’s artists and inspiring places, where the past becomes a springboard for the imagination. Finally, L’Eau des Songes promises to be an experience that is both aesthetic and meditative. It is an inner journey to be experienced with your eyes wide open.
16 impasse de la Manufacture, 11170 Montolieu.
For more information or to arrange a visit, you can visit their official website: www.la-manufacture-royale.fr or contact them by phone at +33 6 32 85 17 85.
OΔK Gallery (Oneofakind): a Toulouse-based gallery founded by designer and gallery owner Antoine Vignault.
Located at 2 place Montoulieu, in Toulouse, the OΔK gallery stands out for its immersive and eclectic approach to contemporary art. The gallery also functions as a bespoke creative studio. In fact, personalized projects of furniture, decoration or artistic installations are also part of its characteristics. This duality allows the gallery to offer unique or limited edition works, mixing contemporary art, vintage furniture from the twentieth century, rare objects and design pieces. Antoine Vignault shines a spotlight on artists who articulate their work around stories, myths and universal symbols. It makes memory and imagination fall in love.
In addition, the gallery represents some forty French and international artists and designers, such as Béatrice Pontacq, Pierre Casenove, Hoon Moreau, Clotilde Ancarani, Sylvie Peyneau and Corinne Tichadou. The works on display include paintings, sculptures, photographs, ceramics, lighting and art furniture. The exhibitions, ephemeral and fortnightly, are accompanied by openings and artistic meetings. The gallery is located in a bourgeois apartment, arranged like a collector’s residence. For the past three years, Antoine Vignault has been organising Un Été à Montolieu, an off-site event not to be missed.
