In the fall of 2020, French photographer Frédéric Stucin stepped into La P’tite Cafète, a small café space within the psychiatric wing of the Niort Hospital. This warm, welcoming place offers patients a chance to take a break from the clinical environment — to have a drink, eat an ice cream, watch a game on TV, or simply chat with each other or with caregivers. One week each month, Stucin proposed a simple yet powerful idea: to create, together with the patients, what he called “real dream portraits” — images that reflect how they want to be seen, and what they wish to say about themselves at that moment. The goal was to transform the traditionally passive act of being observed into an active gesture of self-expression. These portraits aren’t about being looked at — they are about showing oneself.

"To What We Are" is the result of this immersive project, initiated by Villa Pérochon, a center for contemporary photographic art in Niort, in collaboration with one of the hospital’s psychiatric units. Between the portraits, the book also includes views of the physical spaces — La P’tite Cafète and the wider psychiatric unit — along with surprising archival photographs discovered in the hospital's own storage boxes. Together, these elements form a touching and intimate portrait of a world rarely seen from the inside.