Anna Saint-Pierre's practice focuses on the memory of places through the collection and reuse of demolition materials. A textile designer who graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in 2016, she has been a doctor since 2022 in Sciences Arts Création Recherches with a thesis entitled "Textiliser la mémoire bâtie" ("Textileizing built memory"). In 2022, she was awarded the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris in emerging design, and produced two works for the 1% art program.


Inventing textures, colors and shapes based on the history of the Utrillo Tower and its materials, the Chêne-Pointu housing estate, the neighborhood and, more broadly, the Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil area: in her proposal, the artist aims to "sublimate built memory". Anna Saint-Pierre will produce a work in three sections, linking the past, personified in the form of fragments and architectural elements of former housing sites, and the future of local communities.


In discussion with the Encore Heureux architectural firm in charge of the construction of the new buildings and the Ateliers Médicis team, the artist will produce, through a process of reuse and archiving, an artistic installation in dialogue with the past social fabric of the Chêne-Pointu housing estate. To create a series of ceramic objects from soil excavated on site, the designer invited the Niveau Zéro collective and ceramist Camille Calvo to collaborate with her in workshops with the neighborhood.

The artistic installation will be installed in the Ateliers Médicis lobby. It will be composed of three interconnected elements: the floor, custom-made from materials gleaned in the city and on the building site, whose checkerboard pattern in terrazzo traces the contours of the old tower's foundation; a suspended textile wall, a silkscreen produced by the artist from pigments extracted from the earth on the building site; and the entrance doors. The jury was particularly impressed by how well the artistic proposal matched the spirit of the architectural project, and by the active participation of local residents in intergenerational workshops.