Salt is a mineral indispensable to human existence or even to life. It is also an ingredient indispensable to artistic creation, both visual and verbal. From antique books of epigrams to contemporary songs, salt is always here, between laughter and tears. What does it tell about our world and about ourselves? What does it enable to express? This volume offers some answers through the dialogue between the works of contemporary artists – Ariane Carmignac, Marie Cosnay, Ilanit Illouz – and the "slivers of salt" that form here the texts written by professors and students under Marie Cosnay's guidance.

This book is one of the products of the interdisciplinary workshop on the culture of salt led by Christine Hoët-van Cauwenberghe, Arnaud Gauthier et Armelle Masse. More precisely, it is the fruit of a one-year program about the “words of salt”.