Curators: Abdoul-Karime Ben Saïd, Director of MuMA (Musée de Mayotte), M. Colardelle, General Curator of Heritage, Chairman of MuMA's Scientific Advisory Board, C. Foissey, Chief Curator of Heritage Emeritus, Project Manager at MuMA.
Mucem unveils a brand-new exhibition dedicated to Mayotte, a French island whose culture is little-known in mainland France, located over 7,000 kilometers away in the heart of the Indo-Pacific zone.
A land of contrasts and cross-fertilization, Mayotte is a true cultural crossroads, a place of multiple encounters - sometimes conflicting, often fruitful. Volcanic by nature, the island is a melting pot of African, Malagasy, Arab-Muslim and Austronesian influences. These exchanges have shaped its languages, cuisines, knowledge, beliefs and crafts. The dhows, traditional boats, criss-crossed the seas, carrying spices, gold and slaves, but also ideas, traditions and stories.
Today, these ancient sociabilities, the pillars of the Mahoran community, are under threat: globalization, natural disasters, the dematerialization of human relations... The "elders" are disappearing, taking their precious knowledge with them.
It was to preserve this memory that the Musée de Mayotte was created in 2015. Its mission: to collect, preserve and pass on oral histories, objects and practices from the past and present. The exhibition at Mucem is one of the fruits of this ambitious work.
More than 100 objects - evidence of nature, archaeology, history, ethnology, artistic practices - give the exhibition an exceptional scope. Among them, volcanic rocks from the Fani Maoré volcano - the world's youngest volcano -, recent evidence of the island's geological evolution, archaeological ceramics, fragments of the rock crystal that was cut in the archipelago before being transformed into precious Fatimid objets d'art, a skeleton of the "sea monster" (sperm whale), a monoxyle outrigger pirogue, a large dhow sail, the original decree abolishing slavery, a fitako (sedan chair), artistic testimonies such as Didier Valhère's painting La Mahoraise, as well as intangible works such as oral literature and the poems of Nassuf Djailani.
A land of contrasts and cross-fertilization, Mayotte is a true cultural crossroads, a place of multiple encounters - sometimes conflicting, often fruitful. Volcanic by nature, the island is a melting pot of African, Malagasy, Arab-Muslim and Austronesian influences. These exchanges have shaped its languages, cuisines, knowledge, beliefs and crafts. The dhows, traditional boats, criss-crossed the seas, carrying spices, gold and slaves, but also ideas, traditions and stories.
Today, these ancient sociabilities, the pillars of the Mahoran community, are under threat: globalization, natural disasters, the dematerialization of human relations... The "elders" are disappearing, taking their precious knowledge with them.
It was to preserve this memory that the Musée de Mayotte was created in 2015. Its mission: to collect, preserve and pass on oral histories, objects and practices from the past and present. The exhibition at Mucem is one of the fruits of this ambitious work.
More than 100 objects - evidence of nature, archaeology, history, ethnology, artistic practices - give the exhibition an exceptional scope. Among them, volcanic rocks from the Fani Maoré volcano - the world's youngest volcano -, recent evidence of the island's geological evolution, archaeological ceramics, fragments of the rock crystal that was cut in the archipelago before being transformed into precious Fatimid objets d'art, a skeleton of the "sea monster" (sperm whale), a monoxyle outrigger pirogue, a large dhow sail, the original decree abolishing slavery, a fitako (sedan chair), artistic testimonies such as Didier Valhère's painting La Mahoraise, as well as intangible works such as oral literature and the poems of Nassuf Djailani.
