Session 4. Boxes and images

Conceived as a counterpoint, the first session of this seminar postulates that to better understand the materiality of the box, we must first look at its less material dimension. How does the box form extend to thought? To what extent, for example, does it shape the dialectic of container and content that lies at the heart of every classification and tree system? That’s what we’re going to ask ourselves by looking back at the long history of logic, rhetoric and the arts of memory,...
A proposal by Samir Boumediene, teacher-researcher (IHRIM, UMR 5317, ENS de Lyon) in charge of the “Mises en boîtes: histoire, anthropologie et muséographie d’une pratique quotidienne” project at the Mucem. With Ivan Bouchardeau (doctor of philosophy), Gilles Trédan (computer researcher), William Fujiwara (mathematician and philosopher), Naïs Virenque (history researcher), Sarah Dietz, Charles Riondet and Mathilde Nabarette (collections and documentary resources department, Mucem)

  The construction of boxes meets a seemingly simple objective: to match a container to its contents. Yet behind this objective lie complex optimization problems. How do you maximize a container’s internal volume while minimizing its external footprint? What value should be placed on the unoccupied space inside the box? Should it be reduced for reasons of profitability or hygiene, as in a can? Or should it be preserved to facilitate, for example, the breathing or circulation of the living...

In order to better grasp what is at stake in the practice of packaging and the growing importance it has assumed, the third session of the seminar starts from the premise that the container is not a neutral parameter in our relationship to objects. Not only does the box mediate the first contact with an artifact, it is also at the heart of the emotional, economic and social relationships we forge through the consumption or conservation of things. Taking a historical and comparative...
With Samir Boumediene, Researcher, IHRIM-MUCEM: “Pandorama. Boîtes, consommations, attachments” Françoise Dallemagne, Collections and Research Officer, Mucem: “Boîtes à bijoux, boîtes à secrets?” Anne-Valérie Dulac, Senior Lecturer in Elizabethan Studies – Sorbonne University: “‘Biscuits for travelling: the decorated boxes of Huntley & Palmers” (to be confirmed) Anne-Céline Callens, Senior Lecturer, University of Saint-Étienne:...

The fifth and final session will take up the questions raised in previous sessions through the museum practice of conservation.
More specifically, we’ll be looking at the technical and political challenges raised by organic realities. How do you keep an animal or plant alive in a collection or during a trip? When should the crate be closed or left open? When does opacity protect and when is transparency essential? How should we preserve dead bodies, whether in a museum, a cemetery, a funeral procession or at home? What should be done with the micro-organisms fermenting inside the cans? Should we leave them alone,...
Participants: Samir Boumediene, teacher-researcher (IHRIM, UMR 5317, ENS de Lyon) Antoine Duranton, PhD in modern history (EHESS) Astrid S. Klein, visual artist, researcher and curator Alice Le Roy, lecturer in film studies (Université Gustave Eiffel) Lotte Arndt, author, researcher, curator of exhibitions and art programs (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Fatima Naves Souhlal, PhD in soil mechanics, geologist and geotechnician Sophie Renault, gallery owner and collector Laura Brambilla,...