ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Composite museography and the rebuilding of postwar alliances: International collaborations between the Science Museum and the Palais de la Découverte

• In Event: Spirit of 1876: The Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus: International Science Museum Links. 2

English Abstract

The Science Museum and the Palais de la Découverte are two quite different kinds of establishments, not only regarding their dimensions and history but also in terms of the nature of their collections and the way in which these are presented to visitors. However, there was a period, in the years immediately following the Second World War, when these two institutions were in constant communication preparing, designing and operating a series of exhibitions in both London and Paris. In this paper, I will address the nuances of this short but intense collaboration, that from 1945 to 1948 produced four temporary exhibitions and a series of international conferences, and I will do so through two defining features: first, the fact that these inter-institutional projects were made possible by the financial and logistical support of government agencies from both countries, who perceived these collaborations as a tool in the reconfiguration of European cultural diplomacy. Secondly, I will highlight how the resulting exhibitions represented an exercise in composite museography, in which the scientific collections and texts produced by the professionals of the Science Museum and other British institutions were combined with the scientific display logic characteristic of the Palais de la Découverte, consisting of a decentring of historical collections in favour of the experimental and performative aspects of the visit.

Author

• Rosa Elba Camacho, CNRS-EHESS-MNHN, Paris