On the Adamant

There is a place where days feel like dreams. There, you encounter poets, musicians, painters, actors delivering delectable and eccentric monologues. They are the fragile ones; you might even recognize them in the subway or on the street by their slightly broken expressions and their unguarded gazes. These unshielded beings, who sometimes struggle with conversation, are able to open up freely in this place. The space reflects who they are: a floating building at the edge of the city, circular, without partitions, shimmering with light. It is L’Adamant, a day hospital affiliated with the psychiatry department of Esquirol Hospital in Paris. After the unforgettable La moindre des choses, Nicolas Philibert continues his commitment to institutional psychotherapy and its efforts to rethink care for patients through transversality, involvement, and active participation within clinical spaces. Open since 2010, L’Adamant is a place of resistance that teaches us about the possible quality of connection, listening, and life when we resist normative and productivist pressures. It is a place “that does not give in, that strives to keep alive the poetic function of humanity and of language.”

Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director