Populaire ?

Museum views


Today, the Mediterranean is widely perceived as a universal heritage, to be shared by all its inhabitants and beyond. Where and when did this idea come from? How was it forged, and by whom? How was it gradually "invented"? How valid is it today? These are the big questions raised by Mucem's new semi-permanent exhibition, which follows on from the "Connectivités" exhibition opened in November 2017.

The exhibition looks at how the Mediterranean has been constructed as an element of heritage - natural, artistic and ethnological heritage - three approaches whose construction is comparable over time. It proposes to show how museums have staged the Mediterranean subject. Natural science museums have been enriched by the products of the great military expeditions of conquest and then of science. In fine art museums, in the wake of the "Grand Tour", it was the civilizations of the past that were the first to be showcased, followed by images of a dreamed-of Orient, which constructed a fantasized Mediterranean. Ethnology museums, which appeared at the same time as the colonization of the southern and eastern Mediterranean by European states, were interested in distant societies, whether the distance was geographical or in the perception of cultural differences. The sincerity of scientific and human interest in the Other is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the interests and ventures of colonial powers. It is in the light of this genealogical and critical approach that the positioning of the Mucem will be defined in relation to the institutions that preceded it, and in relation to contemporary society.

The major contemporary issues facing the Mediterranean will also be discussed. The crises that are shaking the region today cannot be ignored in the face of a heritage image of the Mediterranean. A collective of committed young people, the Collectif Ascagne, has been given the opportunity to express their views on a selection of objects, in collaboration with Mucem teams and outside experts (academics, object users, artists, etc.). This fresh look will help to evoke, alongside what has contributed to the construction of the Mediterranean, what risks undermining it: what has made and what is unmaking the Mediterranean... If heritage thinking is born of concern about the risk of disappearance, it is often a response to a crisis. Today's Mediterranean crises only serve to rekindle this sense of urgency to safeguard what can and must be preserved.

The exhibition will present the Mucem and its identity in a historical and disciplinary dynamic, placing its founding collections in the context of their relationships with other fields, in order to demonstrate both its filiation and its singularity in the museum landscape.

Around 300 works (paintings, sculptures, objets d'art, graphic arts, furniture, everyday objects, costumes, etc.), mainly from the Mucem collections and major French collections, will be presented.

Mucem General Curator :
Emilie Girard, Scientific and Collections Director
Mucem Deputy General Curator :
Marie-Charlotte Calafat, Heritage Curator,
Head of Collections and Documentary Resources Department
Mucem curators :
Justine Bohbote, Raphaël Bories, Camille Faucourt, Enguerrand Lascols, Hélia Paukner, curators

Accessible for disabled

Show less