Citadelle Cast

Photo: ©Matëo Granger

Heritage . Testimony . Social History

Details

Free

From 10 years old

Duration : 15-20 min per episode

4 episodes to discover at the Citadel

Organiser

The Citadelle of Marseille

Place

Citadelle of Marseille
In the gardens of the Citadelle and at the Haut-Fort

A sound gallry of characters to discover at the Citadelle of Marseille

Citadelle Cast is a project comprising four geolocated sound fictions that invite you to delve into the layers of history at Fort Saint-Nicolas, moving from one era to another and from one narrative voice to another, each expressing itself according to the codes of its time.

Three new sound fictions to discover while following the guard tour of the Haut-Fort at the Citadel

On the first tour, discover ‘Through the main gate’, where we are at the current restoration site, accompanied by Tigran. He has been employed on a work integration scheme for several months and shares his pride in the work accomplished and his personal journey since arriving in Marseille, ‘in social media mode’.

On the second tour, with ‘Down the hole’, we are escorted to the exit by Francine, a switchboard operator at the military telephone exchange located in the basement of the Fort in the 1970s. Francine finishes her shift, happy to see the light of day again, but due to her professional training, she is always ‘on duty’ – on the lookout for the slightest incident at the Fort.

We take one last stroll while listening to ‘Wage war at war’ with Henri, a teacher, trade unionist and pacifist, imprisoned in the Fort after being denounced by his neighbours for publicly criticising the general mobilisation and the return of war in September 1939. Henri manages to circumvent censorship and write to his wife to tell her what goes on behind the scenes at the Fort.

Sound fictions available from 20 September 2025 on the dedicated app – GOH

Discover an exclusive preview now and head to the Citadelle to hear the rest!

Know more

The artists

Valérie Manteau is a French author, editor and columnist. Her first two books, Calme et Tranquille (2016) and Le Sillon (2018), were published by Le Tripode. For these first novels, she drew inspiration from Turkey, a country dear to her heart, to weave her narrative. In 2018, she received the Renaudot Prize for her second novel, Le Sillon. She was part of the Charlie Hebdo team and was also an editor at Les Échappés publishing house from 2008 to 2013.
In 2013, she joined the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (Mucem) in Marseille as publishing and distribution manager. She now lives between Marseille and Istanbul.

Gaëtan Gromer – Composer, artist and sound producer born in 1978, he lives and works in Strasbourg. Artistic director of Ensembles 2.2 (a sound creation studio particularly active in the public sphere) and member of the executive committee and board of directors of HACNUM (national network for hybrid arts and digital cultures), he regularly engages his work in dialogue with other disciplines. He has worked with Maria La Ribot, Valérie Manteau, Hélène Gaudy, Etienne Fanteguzzi, Sebastian Dicenaire, Eve Risser, Lucie Taïeb, Clara Olivares, LNLO, Samuel and Léo Henry, luvan, Zahra Poonawala, Stéphane Perger, Espèce de collectif, among others.
He is the winner of the 2012 Imagina Atlantica European Digital Arts Award, and his albums [fri:z] and Noise Level are respectively among the ten best ambient albums of 2014 according to the French webzine SWQW and the ten best drone albums of 2016 according to the American webzine A Closer Listen.

Antoine Spindler – Trained at the Strasbourg Conservatory in the classes of Ana Haas (violin) and Claude Ducroq (viola), as well as at the University of Strasbourg in musicology, Antoine Spindler studied at Ircam, Fastlane, PML and elsewhere, specialising in electroacoustic and mixed music. He teaches in the Electroacoustic Creation and Performance class at the Conservatoire and at the Académie Supérieure de Musique-Hear in Strasbourg. He currently plays in the Jafta trio, with whom he released the album Traces, and in the Svië duo, with whom he created the album Port Data. His experiences have allowed him to collaborate with various ensembles and musicians (Linéa, Live Animated Orchestra, the Ethos quartet, Plurium, Clara Olivares, Eve Risser, etc.) as well as with various authors (Hélène Gaudy, Jean Fauque, Valérie Manteau, Sébastien Dicenaire, Lucie Taïeb, etc.).