The Neuchâtel Natural History Museum is taking advantage of the future move of its collections to a new museum center to make it a temporary exhibition. “Emballe-moi”, visible from Sunday, humorously depicts the canning of millions of specimens.
“We want to break the image of the museum, seen as something fixed that does not move, while it is always in motion and is in perpetual tension between the very traditional and the very modern”, declared Thursday Ludovic Maggioni, director of the Museum.
“When we move, we ask ourselves questions, for example, regarding who we are, and what we are going to become. (…). This is a pivotal moment to put the future into perspective,” added the director.
Since the official birth of the museum in 1838, for example, the collections have had to be moved several times. The General Council of Neuchâtel has voted a credit of 8 million francs to regroup all the collections of the city’s museums in Tivoli, in a 6000 m2 place which will allow them to be kept in optimal conditions, to prevent their deterioration. The move is expected to begin in 2023 and be completed by the end of 2024.
Wealth of collections
The exhibition offers a route that combines discovery of the variety of collections and the know-how necessary for their conservation. Throughout the visit, the public is witness to a declaration of love for the collections and professions of the Museum. “Pack me up” has a double meaning: in addition to the move, the museum wants to seduce the visitor.
Imagined as a dreamlike maze, the exhibition, visible from Sunday until August 13, 2023, competes in games of scales and perspectives. People get lost and find themselves there. The loss of orientation opens the way to questions.
The love of collecting also comes in artistic form. In the main staircase, the oil paintings of the Neuchâtelois Till Rabus question the staging of death, with taxidermied animals, the very one that nevertheless represents the living. An interactive video creation by the Vaudois artist Camille Scherrer can also be experienced in the palm of your hand.
The sound installations of the Franco-Chilean duo Nova Materia punctuate the journey with whispers and outbursts of voices that plunge the visitor into the phonic wings of the museum.
The exhibition shows the richness and variety of the museum’s collections: stuffed animals, butterflies, animals in alcohol, trophies, paper archives, sculptures, etc. Depending on the type of objects, moving involves another conditioning. During this season, the public will be able to learn during workshops to dust off, make a condition report and condition valuable items.
The Museum recalled that its enemies are beetles, beetles, spider beetles, stegobiums or moths. These unwanted guests, who feed on hair, feathers or other organic matter, for example, are capable of destroying a collection if nothing is done.
/ATS
