The word "bien" has several meanings which overlap and reflect each other.* It carries within it a deep ambiguity, constantly alternating between the moral value of what is right, the material nature of a possession, a measure of intensity or the reinforcing of a certainty. It can refer to a physical or moral state as well as to an idea of use or benefit. This is the dual meaning providing the common thread linking the projects of Théo Sauvé and Lina Zegrani-Monro, both holders of an Artist in Residence award in 2026, under a programme led by Passerelle and DDA Bretagne.

Although they each take a very different approach, Théo Sauvé and Zegrani-Monro both base their work on tangible elements to explore the close links between ways of looking and the status of the things surrounding us. For both of them, looking is never a neutral gesture; it is the chosen frame determining what becomes visible, desirable, precious or negligible.

In Ici et là, la Mayenne (Here and There, Mayenne) by Théo Sauvé, a three-part work of videos, a series of paintings and writings, the artist closely and meticulously observes the village of his childhood. He lingers on those places we pass without necessarily looking at them – roads, car parks, the urban fringe and peripheral areas – and also on the friendly gestures, familiar places and fleeting moments that make up everyday life. The artist films, writes, paints, and then returns to the images and places, transferring them from one medium to another. Through these shifts, an ordinary landscape becomes an image to look at, an image is transformed into something to be reworked, a moment steps forward for a fresh look. His works therefore give depth to what normally takes place in the background, revealing the emotional value of places and familiar gestures, beyond their mere function or apparent banality. The "common goods" of the title are therefore to be understood in the singular as a reference to what links us to each other. By paying attention to those ordinary places and moments, the artist shows us what constitutes, in our shared daily experiences, a collective richness that is often invisible, yet essential.

With Lina Zegrani-Monro, the title is interpreted differently. In Personne ne peut voir la différence et chacun·e les admire (No-one can see the difference and everyone admires them), a project using videos, sculpture and installation, the artist traces the history of acetate, a material first used to imitate precious materials such as tortoiseshell and ivory, then used to make cinema film and everyday objects, from spectacles to hairclips, products that were mass-produced and sometimes almost disposable. By exploring the transformations of this material, she challenges the boundaries between the common and the precious, as well as our way of looking at this and assigning value. From the portholes of ships to opticians' shop windows to cinema auditoria, the works look at different ways of seeing things, with apparently unrelated objects and stories conversing with each other. By moving them and bringing them together, the artist reveals the economies, uses and imaginations they bear.

Between the personal and the collective, the intimate and the economic, the ephemeral and what remains, the works of Théo and Lina gently shift the focus of our attention. They invite us to look again, and perhaps ask ourselves what, in our surroundings, deserves to be looked at or indeed kept.