If you love cultural outings, then this is the event not to be missed. La Nuit des Musées is a not-to-be-missed European-wide event. Once a year, this event invites us to take over museums, castles, monuments and other exciting cultural venues for night-time visits, often free of charge. The program can even be enriched withworkshops andunusual events, to our great delight.
So don't miss out on this great cultural opportunity! This year, the date is Saturday, May 18, 2024. Numerous venues in the Paris region will be opening their doors to us for this exceptional evening. If you're looking for an idea for a Night of Museums outing in the Hauts-de-Seine, we suggest you take a look at the program at La Contemporaine.
This is a hybrid cultural spot. Part library, part archive and part museum, this venue is dedicated to thecontemporary history of the 20th and 21st centuries. But what does it have in store for Nuit des Musées 2024 ? Discover the program for this new edition.
Free tour of the exhibition
Based on the collections of La Contemporaine and enriched by public and private archives, the exhibition "Rwanda 1994. Traces of the Tutsi genocide" revisits the main dimensions of the genocide, based on unpublished or little-known material, including archives, press collections, objects and eyewitness accounts. With a particular focus on Rwandan research and sources, the exhibition on panels looks at the actors, places and rhythms of the massacres, genocidal practices, the role of the Rwandan and international media, the role of the churches, the involvement of Western powers, and the issues of memory and transmission.
Discover the permanent exhibition at La Contemporaine
How and from what sources is the history of the present written? How did we come to take an interest in hitherto neglected sources - the press, graphic works, leaflets, photographs, posters, audiovisuals, the web? Why are we so keen to preserve traces of our personal or family history? Why do activists collect archives of their commitment? How do the points of view of the historian, the activist and the citizen interact? Why and how can these materials be passed on to future generations?
Through a stroll through La Contemporaine's collections - paintings from the Great War, leaflets, sketches from the Liberation trials or the notebooks of Algerian war recruits, archives collected during the Russian Revolution or samizdats from the 1970s-1980s, photojournalists' work, filmed interviews, activist or association archives....- l'Atelier de l'histoire questions our relationship with contemporary history and its sources.
Audioguides in French and English are available free of charge. Guided tour of around 45 minutes.
La Contemporaine is delighted to welcome the performance of "Jouer l'archive, octobre-décembre 1940", produced by the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (Université PSL) and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, and directed by Keti Irubetagoyena.
December 1940, Vichy. Senior government officials discuss how to implement the law of October 3, 1940 on the status of Jews: three days later, anyone designated as an "Israelite" will be excluded from the civil service.
For some unknown reason, the minutes of this meeting have been preserved in the Archives Nationales, among other administrative documents. They provide a vaudeville-like dialogue, were it not for the fact that they plunge us into the chilling detachment of the technocratic machine at work in France at the time.
Inserted here and there like sudden escapes, brief biographies recount the post-war careers of these men and women.
See teaser
Performances at 4:30 pm and 7:00 pm.
Running time: approx. 45 minutes.
Dates and Opening Time
On May 18th, 2024
Location
La Contemporaine
184 Cours Nicole Dreyfus
92000 Nanterre
Access
Nanterre (RER A)
Official website
www.lacontemporaine.fr
