Popular?

Treasures from the Mucem collections

Affiche Populaire ?
Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen
Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen
Parcours du collectionneur, Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen
Parcours du collectionneur, Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen

Bande annonce de l'exposition «Populaire ?»

Popstars © Julie Cohen
Popstars © Julie Cohen
©Nadine Jestin_hans_lucas_Mucem
Costumes crées pour la cérémonie des JO, une création de Daphné Burki, Thomas Joly, Olivier Beriot 2024 / Paris 2024, Comité d’organisation des Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques. Photo ©Nadine Jestin, Hans Lucas, Mucem

As the Mucem celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2023, it's a good time to take a look back at its heart and history: its collection.

The aim of this permanent exhibition is to present the collection in all its diversity. It brings together the historical holdings of the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires, the European collections of the Musée de l’Homme and those acquired since the early 2000s, with a view to opening up to the Mediterranean and the contemporary world.

Interview with Émilie Girard, Mucem's Scientific and Collections Director

On the first floor of the building, the Mucem’s permanent exhibition is designed as a space for discovery, highlighting the profoundly human character of the objects and testimonies that make up this collection. It presents what makes up the museum’s “material”, it bears witness to the semiotic (what objects say about the society in which they were produced) and aesthetic character of this collection, and makes it possible to read all the stories that led to the acquisitions, the life paths of the objects, what motivated their entry into the museum’s reserves, then and now.

The general itinerary follows broad categories borrowed from the vocabulary of the history of arts and techniques (“painting”, “sculpture”, “metal arts”, “ceramics”, etc.). A journey that brings out the particularities of the Mucem collection, breaking with the usual hierarchy between fine art and popular art. We thus move from objects expected in a museum (such as paintings, ex-votos, icons, etc.) to more surprising items (such as decorated beehive doors), and from objects familiar to the general public to more unexpected or even mysterious items.

Alongside the 1,200 objects and documents from the Mucem’s historical collections, or those more recently acquired by the museum, an immersive digital mediation system evokes, through a selection of objects, the idea of “popular culture” that permeates its collections.

Le parcours du Collectionneur

Throughout the “Populaire?” exhibition, a multi-sensory tour for the general public, accessible to the visually and mentally impaired, punctuates the visit.

It’s a sensitive, poetic device made up of 7 stations in a retro universe, inviting visitors to discover and handle the collection of a fictional character, the eccentric collector. Travel souvenirs, films, masks… as the character gleans his finds, everyone can discover or rediscover the popular imagination associated with everyday objects that have become emblematic, a sort of “Proust’s madeleines” that awaken emotions, sensations and memories.

Design and production: Chouette fluo and Esprit Volume
The exhibition is curated by Mucem’s scientific direction and curatorial department.
Scenography: Sylvie Jodar
Graphic design: Caroline Pauchant
Lighting design: Thierry d’Oliveira Reis

As the Mucem celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2023, it's a good time to take a look back at its heart and history: its collection.

Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen
Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen

The aim of this permanent exhibition is to present the collection in all its diversity. It brings together the historical holdings of the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires, the European collections of the Musée de l’Homme and those acquired since the early 2000s, with a view to opening up to the Mediterranean and the contemporary world.

Parcours du collectionneur, Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen
Parcours du collectionneur, Exposition Populaire ? © Julie Cohen

Interview with Émilie Girard, Mucem's Scientific and Collections Director

Bande annonce de l'exposition «Populaire ?»

On the first floor of the building, the Mucem’s permanent exhibition is designed as a space for discovery, highlighting the profoundly human character of the objects and testimonies that make up this collection. It presents what makes up the museum’s “material”, it bears witness to the semiotic (what objects say about the society in which they were produced) and aesthetic character of this collection, and makes it possible to read all the stories that led to the acquisitions, the life paths of the objects, what motivated their entry into the museum’s reserves, then and now.

Popstars © Julie Cohen
Popstars © Julie Cohen
©Nadine Jestin_hans_lucas_Mucem
Costumes crées pour la cérémonie des JO, une création de Daphné Burki, Thomas Joly, Olivier Beriot 2024 / Paris 2024, Comité d’organisation des Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques. Photo ©Nadine Jestin, Hans Lucas, Mucem

The general itinerary follows broad categories borrowed from the vocabulary of the history of arts and techniques (“painting”, “sculpture”, “metal arts”, “ceramics”, etc.). A journey that brings out the particularities of the Mucem collection, breaking with the usual hierarchy between fine art and popular art. We thus move from objects expected in a museum (such as paintings, ex-votos, icons, etc.) to more surprising items (such as decorated beehive doors), and from objects familiar to the general public to more unexpected or even mysterious items.

Alongside the 1,200 objects and documents from the Mucem’s historical collections, or those more recently acquired by the museum, an immersive digital mediation system evokes, through a selection of objects, the idea of “popular culture” that permeates its collections.

Le parcours du Collectionneur

Throughout the “Populaire?” exhibition, a multi-sensory tour for the general public, accessible to the visually and mentally impaired, punctuates the visit.

It’s a sensitive, poetic device made up of 7 stations in a retro universe, inviting visitors to discover and handle the collection of a fictional character, the eccentric collector. Travel souvenirs, films, masks… as the character gleans his finds, everyone can discover or rediscover the popular imagination associated with everyday objects that have become emblematic, a sort of “Proust’s madeleines” that awaken emotions, sensations and memories.

Design and production: Chouette fluo and Esprit Volume
The exhibition is curated by Mucem’s scientific direction and curatorial department.
Scenography: Sylvie Jodar
Graphic design: Caroline Pauchant
Lighting design: Thierry d’Oliveira Reis

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À l’aide d’un parcours composé de stations tactiles, cette visite sensorielle propose de revenir sur ce qui constitue le cœur et l’histoire du Mucem : sa collection. Cette exposition permanente souhaite présenter sa collection dans toute sa diversité. Elle réunit en effet les fonds historiques du Musée national des arts et traditions populaires, les collections européennes du Musée de l’Homme et celles acquises depuis le début des années 2000 dans une volonté d’ouverture vers...