En route to a "different" history of the world. A history in which Europe and the West are no longer at the center of the world, leaving room for other narratives.
The Mucem invites you to explore the history of the world from the 13th to the 21st century, abandoning the Western perspective. Through sculptures, paintings, textiles, maps, archaeological objects, manuscripts and decorative arts, this exhibition reveals the infinite diversity of African, Asian, American and Oceanic experiences. It reveals other forms of globalization, for which Europe is not the only driving force. The works presented provide an insight into the relationship to time and space of societies outside Europe, while highlighting the ways in which they write history. Lakota buffalo skins, engraved Kanak bamboo, Javanese historiated sarongs and Senegalese griot narratives bear witness to the infinite wealth of vernacular historiographies.
The voyages and explorations of Arab, Asian and African merchants, pilgrims and scholars, who "discovered" faraway lands and produced new knowledge, were to overturn these so-called traditional conceptions of the world. African cowrie shells and Chinese navigation charts are powerful reminders that globalization was multipolar, in Central Asia, the Indian Ocean and far beyond. With the gradual decompartmentalization of the globe, Europeans themselves became the subjects of numerous and sometimes bewildering representations, and the world an object of many curiosities and encyclopedic ambitions outside the West. Faced with the European-centric narrative produced by colonial empires from the 17th century onwards, the rulers, elites and artists of other continents sought to reappropriate their history, sometimes drawing inspiration from Western practices, to stage their power or anti-colonial resistance. Today, new national novels enable them to rewrite their past by reinventing their relationship with the world.
The exhibition features over 150 works and objects from public and private collections: Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et des civilisations (BULAC, Paris), Collège de France (Paris), École française d'Extrême-Orient (Paris), Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain (Paris), Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Paris), Musée agathois Jules Baudou (Agde), Musée Champollion - Les Écritures du monde (Figeac), Musée de la Compagnie des Indes (Lorient), Musée de l'Institut du monde arabe (Paris), Musée des Confluences (Lyon), Musée des explorations du monde (Cannes), Musée du Louvre - Départements des Peintures et des Objets d'art (Paris), Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (Paris), Musée itinérant de la Perle ancienne en France, Collection Márcia de Castro et Guy Maurette (Paris), Musée national de la voiture - château de Compiègne, Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet (Paris), Muséum d'histoire naturelle (Le Havre), Fries Museum (Leeuwarden).
Curated by
Fabrice Argounès
Geographer specializing in the history of cartographic and geopolitical knowledge, lecturer at the University of Rouen and exhibition curator.
Camille Faucourt
Curator, head of the Mobilités et Métissages department, Mucem
Pierre Singaravélou
Historian specializing in colonial empires and globalization, professor at King's College London and Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
Set design: Kascen
