This puzzle and this exit certificate could join the Mucem fund. - J. Saint-Marc / 20 Minutes

  • Numerous collections of archives have been launched all over France to collect the memory of confinement.
  • "People thank us for offering them a way out," says Emilie Girard, scientific director of Mucem in Marseille, which is behind one of these collections.

What are you going to do with this magnificent salt dough snail made by your children? If confinement gives you the urge to sort through large quantities of spring, you can try to unload with Mucem. The museum of civilizations in Europe and the Mediterranean, in Marseille, launched this week a call for donations. "We had a proposal for a visor made with a 3D printer, an orchid that bloomed during confinement or a packet of crackers sent by a man who feeds the birds," illustrates Emilie Girard, scientific director of Mucem.

The Marseille museum collects (until May 31) photos of these objects "which have become essential in our confined lives, reflecting the tremendous solidarity that is taking place or, on the contrary, the movements of rejection and fear. About fifteen proposals have already arrived, including one from Dubai.

Objects no doubt integrated into an AIDS exhibition

“We will then analyze them, perhaps with the help of outside researchers. Many of them are working on this issue, ”sketched Emilie Girard. The objects chosen will join the Mucem fund and will no doubt be used during an AIDS exhibition scheduled for the end of 2021. "I don't see how we could talk about this pandemic without placing it in the context of that that we live today, "concludes the scientific director, satisfied with the first feedback from witnesses:" Their proposals are touching because they tell us their lives ... And they thank us for offering them a way out! "

[Call for donations for a participatory collection]
At a time when half of the world population lives confined, #Mucem launches a call for donations: offer objects or documents which for you, symbolize, embody, translate your confined daily life. https://t.co/1jZ6wbHawb pic.twitter.com/ZKcN7ddzmH

- Mucem (@Mucem) April 21, 2020

A virtual containment museum is also being prepared. Yves Rozenholc, professor of data science at the University of Paris, is working with colleagues from Sorbonne Paris Nord on a participatory database project. "This is the first pandemic of the digital age, so we have an unprecedented electronic corpus," enthuses the researcher, presenting us with a series of slides. This future virtual museum will "tell the youngest what happened, help families who have lost a loved one, explain the situation to confined children. And it will, of course, be an "analytical tool" for researchers.

Yves Rozenholc, who dreams of a “duplicable project abroad”, is in the process of establishing a financing plan and hopes to soon be able to recruit engineers and programmers to build the structure of the database. It could be available in several months. Until then, this teacher-researcher “asks people to store these digital traces at home. "

"People feel the need to testify"

Some French people have already entrusted them to their departmental archives: François Petrazoller, head of the Vosges archives service, noted that “people feel the need to testify. On the third day of confinement, he launched a local collection - it has since been imitated by numerous departmental and municipal archives.

We are living an exceptional episode, which is already History. Take part in the #memoiredeconfinement! Send your testimonials, stories, photos (pdf and jpg 200ko max) or videos (20 MB) by email to vosges-archives@vosges.fr, we will keep them for eternity! pic.twitter.com/ebAeg2VjDF

- Archives des Vosges (@archivesvosges) March 18, 2020

François Petrazoller received "poignant testimonies" from people whose spouses continued to work in the textile companies mobilized to make masks. "People were anxious for the health of their spouses, for the balance of the family," is moved by the heritage curator.

What are the sounds of confinement?

These emotions will be used as material for the creation for the sound artist Babette Largo, who has joined this “Memory of containment” initiative from the Yvelines archives. Babette Largo launches a collection of audio and video testimonies to create “a soundtrack of containment. "She wonders:" How is it going with people at 8 pm? What sounds do they produce during the day? Is TV more present? Or is it silence that dominates? "

For the moment, it has mostly received noises from the computer keyboard. Would this confinement make us ultra productive?

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How to give your archives?

To participate in the collection of Mucem, you can send a proposed object by email to the address confinement@mucem.org. You must send one or more photos, if possible in the context of use or manufacture of the object, and a testimony in a few lines. The collection will be closed on May 31.

Babette Largo is looking for audio or video testimonials, to be sent to the address tousenresidence@gmail.com. Collections by department are referenced on the France Archives site. Finally, Yves Rozenholc's site will be online in a few months.

  • Mucem
  • Museum
  • Marseille
  • Confinement
  • Archives
  • Culture
  • Coronavirus