From Royal Garden to Natural History Museum

In Touch in Museums, editor Helen J. Catterjee references Donald Preziosi's development of Foucalt's thesis by concluding that: "the museum was not only productive of knowledge about objects but functioned as 'an instrument for the manufacture of ... societies, ethnicities, races, classes, genders, and individuals; of history, progress, and moralities (ibid)."

As such, it is no surprise that le Musée d'Homme is under renovation as I discussed in my previous post. It does bring to question the museums of "natural history" however.

In the first place, "natural history" infers that this history in an absolute, indisputable truth, and it is perhaps with this conclusion that those who were excavating for museum materials (most notably skeletons of extinct plants and animals) justified their quests throughout the world. The Galleries de Paléonthologie et d'Anatomie comparée compare such materials in an encyclopedic matter. Dinosaurs for example, have been reconstructed and displayed with pride in order of their development and extinction with a nod to the place in which their remains were found.

The Grande Gallerie de l'Evolution, on the other hand, has taken a more "modern approach." Housed in a similarly open and airy environment, natural light is replaced with colored lights which, in my opinion, provide a more "science fiction" feel. Animals are displayed with labels in modern glass cases or in the center in of the rooms where they appear to migrating, hunting, or playing with each other. Interactive activities invite children and adults to get a sense of their natural environments and identifying characteristics. There is even an educational space specifically for children.

It is as if, in Judith Matsai's terms, the museum's philosophy is such that "the museum is an education resource for lifelong learning, [and thus] the task changes in order to identify multiple points of entry for visitors of many sorts and kinds, based on differences in age, gender, race, ethnicity, levels of knowledge about history, about art history, and so on."

Both strategies are, in my opinion, effective, but the visitor to the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution is made to feel more a part of the natural and historical development of the world. There direct relationship between man and animals is discussed (due in no small part to the fact that they simultaneously exited--as opposed to most if not all of the creatures displayed in the Galeries de Paléonthologie et d'Anatomie comparée). As seen in the photo above, s/he is even, as seen above, called to question the role s/he plays in nature as the world continues to develop.