"As the Mucem celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, it's a great opportunity to look back at what constitutes its heart and its history: its collection. This permanent exhibition aims to present the collection in all its diversity. It brings together the historical holdings of the Musée national des arts et traditions populaires, the European collections of the Musée de l'Homme and those acquired since the early 2000s in a bid to open up to the Mediterranean and the contemporary world." - press release.
Alongside the 1,200 objects and documents from the Mucem's historical collections or those more recently acquired by the museum, an immersive digital mediation system will evoke, through a selection of objects, the idea of "popular culture" that permeates its collections.
The inauguration of this permanent exhibition, which Pierre-Olivier Costa acknowledged had been completed to tight deadlines, comes against a tense social backdrop, a few days after some of the staff sent a letter to the President criticising his management. One year after the appointment of this former director of Brigitte Macron's private office, the letter accuses him of "failing to take the measure of the suffering at work" of the staff, and also deplores "the damage done to the scientific project and the image of the Mucem".