Up to July the 12th, 2015, The Dapper Museum presents the exhibition “L’Art de Manger Rites et Traditions”, or The Art of Dining which highlights the traditions, knowledge and actions lived on a daily basis, or exceptionally, in ceremonies or rituals in Africa and Oceania Archipelago.
The liquid or solid foods, as well as preparations for absorption, or the offerings made to ancestors, deities and spirits are inseparable particular objects whose forms and materials are extremely diverse. This is what this exhibition proposes to discover.
The festivities like weddings – which are alliances between groups – require huge feasts themselves evidence of wealth and prestige. This is the case for example in the Admiralty Islands (Bismarck Archipelago, Melanesia), where huge dishes contained among other previously cooked pork pieces.
At a time of globalization, of fast food and the frenzied industrialization of food, men and women still preserve traditions and rituals governing the preparation and consumption of food for themselves or to beings from another world.
The exhibition is thus devoted to the rites and traditions governing the preparation and consumption of food in Africa, and Oceania Archipelago, where eating is considered as a social act, symbolic end even magic, where eating is anything but an ordinary act in the traditional societies of Africa and Oceania.
The exhibition highlights through a magnificent selection of works (dishes, containers, spoons, masks, statuettes …) traditions and rituals associated with the preparation and consumption of food for human beings or of ‘other world.
The Dapper Museum offers visitors guided tours to better understand the rituals and contexts of use of these objects, and immerse in the very heart of these cultures.
Guests staying at Hotel Louvre Marsollier are within 15 minute ride from the Dapper Museum, and will be lucky to assist the exhibition until 12 July 2015.