New Exhibition at the Musée des Explorations du Monde in Cannes

Until May 25, 2025, the Musée des Explorations du Monde in Cannes presents the exhibition “Vanuatu. The Voice of Ancestors.”

Designed for a wide audience, “Vanuatu. The Voice of Ancestors” is part of the museum’s exhibitions aimed at promoting the traditional arts of peoples whose creations make up the museum’s ethnographic collection. The museum holds a rich collection of objects from Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, acquired in the 1980s and 1990s by traveler and collector Georges Liotard.

The exhibition features works from the Cannes collection along with exceptional loans from the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens, Amérindiens (MAAOA) in Marseille, gallerist Franck Marcelin, and private collectors. Photographs taken by Georges Liotard from 1966 to 1976 provide context for the objects and intangible heritage, showcasing a world that has now disappeared.

Through six exhibition spaces, the exhibition tells the story of this mysterious archipelago, “where we were constantly penetrated by the widespread, inexplicable feeling of divinity” (Raga, Le Clézio), immersing visitors in the world of myth.

The exhibition also features testimonies from three key figures who lived on these islands, telling the story of travelers and collectors’ fascination, the partial disappearance, mutation, and preservation of customs, missionary evangelization, fieldwork by scientists, the brutality of the elements, their destructive force, and global warming.

An installation by local artist Laurent Barnavon evokes the traditional men’s house and hosts the skulls of ancestors, along with the museum’s masterpiece, the rambaramp (funerary mannequin) of Ainbur, who died between 1950 and 1955.

Finally, the exhibition concludes with a presentation of the intangible heritage of Ni-Vanuatu: sand drawing (inscribed in 2008 on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list), music, the spectacular and dangerous “Gol Jump,” Art Festivals as celebratory events of the living arts, and local cuisine.

It also reminds us that an island world could disappear due to rising sea levels.

A 48-page catalog, published by the Municipality of Cannes, accompanies the exhibition. Price: 5€.

Practical Information:

• Open until: May 25, 2025
  Musée des Explorations du Monde, Le Suquet, Cannes. Access via rue Perrissol or place de la Castre. Suquet Forville parking.

• Hours:

  • December to March: Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
  • April to June: Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM.

• Prices:

  • Full ticket: 6.50 €
  • Reduced ticket: 3.50 € (ages 18-25; group of 10 adults; Cannes Pass Cultura)
  • Free for minors under 18 and students
  • Exhibition catalog: 5€