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du sam. 17 oct. au dim. 1er nov.
Le musée est ouvert tous les jours de 10h30 à 18h30.
Pour éviter la file d’attente, achetez votre billet en ligne.
Eternities
visions of the Beyond
The exhibition route
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Passages between two worlds
While human societies make a distinction between the visible and the invisible, they allow for the possibility of exchanges between these two worlds. Guardian or evil spirits are believed to be able to influence the world of the living. To begin the experience, visitors are greeted with a figure that is common to North American Indian, African and Inuit cultures: the intercessor. A shaman or ancestor, this person is the point of contact between the world of the living and that of the spirits and the dead. Objects are made in order to communicate with the spirits, as well as to honour or guard against them.
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The contemporary relationship with death
Like a pause during the visitors’ experience, cocoon seats, placed beneath a well-lit dome, invite visitors to ask questions about the meaning of death in today's societies.
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The materiality of death
Subsequent sections of the experience compare the funerary practices of Egyptian, Peruvian and Caucasian cultures. Exhibits of human remains, grave goods and the three types of graves, displayed as they were discovered, reveal the materiality of death.
4/4
Giving meaning to death
The experience ends with two motifs to reflect on, like two propositions of the relationship with death. On one side, the Buddhist Parinirvana offers a peaceful vision, in which death is the supreme achievement for any believer. On the other, the Western vanitas invites us to consider the fragility of our condition and the impermanence of human existence.
- Roland Bacon, astrophysicist
- Élisabeth de Fontenay, philosopher and essayist
- Pierre Gibert, critic and historian of religions
- Pascal Picq, palaeoanthropologist
- Pierre Thomas, geologist
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Émile Guimet Gallery
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