From a quote by Malcolm de Chazal

A light emerging from the evening tears through the shadows of a dormant past. It penetrates the walls of a former sugar factory laboratory and reveals, within the material itself, a constellation of star-shaped works—furniture, forms, gestures, legends.

At the intersection of design, craftsmanship, and heritage, the exhibition brings together designers who, like local goldsmiths, capture the sensitive fragments of places marked by history to give them a new light. Their creations reinvent the home, shift uses, and revive textures. In dialogue with the memory of know-how, these objects are also committed propositions—ecological, desirable, sustainable—to be acquired in a time when every act of production calls for reflection and imagination.

Here, light is not just a theme: it is the common thread of a comparison. The contemporary pieces are complemented by Céline Aho Nienne’s video documentary project, installed like a moving mirror: it brings to life the voices and legends of Grand-Bois, a tropical industrial village now dormant, and illuminates them with the testimonies of those who once inhabited it. These stories awaken the soul of a place in transformation, between past and future—like a star thought to have extinguished.

In this laboratory-turned-gallery, materials—iron, fiber, light, wood, sand—rediscover their voice and invite us to reinvent our interiors. The designers and artists present here are, in their own way, star builders: emerging from the darkness to illuminate our daily lives.

What if, in the black sand of our volcanic earth, nuggets lay dormant?

What if this light, drawn from the evening bag, helped us to better see—the territory, the gestures, the connections?

With the artists: Appart2, Céline Ahonienne, Bertrand Lisonde, Djothi Souprayenmestry, Johanna Grégoire, Mélanie Voisin, Robinson, Loris Gazut

Curators: Julien Aure & Mélanie Voisin

Exhibition presented as part of French Design Week & European Heritage Days, with the support of the Réunion Departmental Council (Citizen Initiatives Budget),

in partnership with ARD, Prosin Kou Do Fe, ARBAT Bois Corail, and La Vitrine