The musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac is transforming the experience offered to the public visiting its permanent collections devoted to the arts and civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, with a brand new sound trail.
The musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac is offering visitors a brand new sound trail through its permanent collections. More than 120 relays throughout the Main Collections Level broadcast sounds linked to the objects, display cases or geographical areas. This acoustic framework is made up of instrumental sounds, narratives, spoken voices, singing, urban or natural soundscapes and original compositions that give context to the works and objects.
The sound elements – creations, archive extracts or field recordings – are broadcast on a continuous basis or are triggered automatically as the visitor approaches. The result is a polyphonic score in which the sound presence is intermittent and spread harmoniously throughout the museum space.
This new perennial sound trail enriches the visitor experience by combining the tangible and intangible dimensions of the collections; it provides a lively narrative and diversifies the keys to understanding civilisations, and it is also in line with new multi-sensory cultural practices.
This innovation is the fruit of multi-disciplinary work involving the museum's scientific teams, in close collaboration with sound engineers and designers, composers and specialists in field ethnography, and curated by Éric de Visscher, a specialist in heritage and sound creation.
In keeping with its year-round offerings in the performing arts, cinema and knowledge, the museum invites visitors to explore the intangible dimensions of the arts and civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.