Travelling exhibitions
Travelling exhibitions to share history and archaeology everywhere
The Musée du Malgré-Tout offers a selection of three traveling exhibitions based on successful temporary exhibitions of the past. The idea? To enable partners in Belgium and elsewhere to enrich their cultural programming by discovering captivating themes through ready-to-use exhibitions. A great way of sharing history, archaeology and knowledge with a wide audience, wherever they may be.
Each exhibition is designed to be easily transported and installed, and comes with explanatory panels in French, with a Dutch translation available. They are suitable for museums and cultural institutions.
The thruster
- Discover the ingenious tools that revolutionized hunting in prehistoric times
The thruster is a weapon that has been forgotten, except by a few archaeologists and re-enactment enthusiasts… Yet it has been used on several continents for thousands of years for hunting, fishing and… warfare. This throwing weapon consists of a rod or board of variable shape, fitted with a supporting device (hook, spur, gutter…), on or in which a projectile is inserted: assegai, harpoon or long arrow. The types of projectile and thruster are closely linked, as are their uses.
The exhibition showcases will take you from the extraordinary world of prehistoric hunters in Europe, where the thruster first appeared some 24,000 years ago, to the deserts of Australia’s Aborigines, via the swamps of New Guinea’s Papuans and the icy expanses of the Arctic Inuit, not forgetting the forests of Amazonia and the plains of North America’s Great Basin.
The thruster is a testament to human ingenuity and the ability to adapt to a wide variety of sometimes extreme environments. The exhibition features some of the finest prehistoric finds and ethnographic objects from all over the world, while illustrated panels provide a documentary framework: instructions for use, photos and archive documents, didactic drawings.
Women in prehistory
- An exploration of the role of women through prehistoric times
Prehistory is gradually revealing its secrets. We know more and more about the climate and vegetation of prehistoric man’s time, the animals that surrounded and hunted them, their weapons, their tools, their skeletons, their dwellings, their art… But what do we know about prehistoric women? What did she look like? How did they live? Did they hunt, gather or sew by the fire while waiting for their hunter husbands?
The exhibition attempts to answer these questions by taking stock of our current knowledge on the subject. The prehistoric woman is analyzed through ethnographic comparisons with present-day hunter-gatherer peoples, through burials containing her remains and ornaments, and through the many sculpted, painted and engraved representations that prehistoric hunter-gatherers themselves have left us.
Prehistory as if you were there
- Illustrations by Benoît Clarys take visitors on a journey through time
Through a selection of illustrations created by Benoît Clarys since 1989, the exhibition explores the links between art and science. Each illustration is accompanied by the archaeological objects, natural elements, ethnographic or experimental data that inspired the artist. This dialogue between images and artifacts allows us to reflect on how we represent an often fragmentary past.
What role do the imaginary, artistic techniques and cultural biases play in these reconstructions? The exhibition also questions human identity, highlighting our similarities and differences through the prism of archaeology. Halfway between science and art, this fascinating exhibition brings to life relics that are sometimes difficult to grasp, offering a unique visual and intellectual experience.
This exhibition was designed in collaboration with the Musée du Malgré-Tout, the Ramioul Prehistosite and illustrator Benoît Clarys.
