Following the residencies and preparatory workshops that began in 2015, artists and researchers are presenting an unprecedented rousing of the Mucem’s collections through Bilingual document: a dual exhibition presented at Fort SaintJean and the Centre for Conservation and Resources, featuring a sound walk that links the two sites and a book.

The Mucem houses in its reserves the collections from the former Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, created in 1937 by Georges Henri Rivière. Artisanal or preindustrial vestiges of a bygone era, the objects assembled here are the bounty of methodical collections conducted during field surveys, enriched by objects acquired since the opening of the museum. The question of the dual nature of the object, split between popular art and scientific discourse, was at the heart of Rivière’s project. But what about these collections now dormant in the Mucem’s reserves? An uneasy feeling seizes visitors at the sight of these curious and sometimes obsolete time capsules. While a few objects may be called upon for a specific exhibition, how can we mobiliser the collection in a more general way within the framework of a museum of civilisation? How can we activate a document, even make it perform, by reflecting its bilingual nature: an object with an aesthetic or poetic status, while also testifying to its ethnographic value? Could art be, paradoxically, the way of reviving these trophies?

Including works by Jean-François Chougnet, Yo Barrada, Omar Berrada and M’barek Bouhchichi, Jean-Roch Bouiller, Marie-Charlotte Calafat, Erik Bullot, Sabrina Grassi, Yaël Kreplak, Franck Leibovici, Florent Molle, Uriel Orlow, Abril Padilla and Pascal Riviale.

Curated by Sabrina Grassi and Guest Curator Erik Bullot

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