By Simon Hirzel, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
As a young scientist from Bonn, who is affiliated with the ethnological and archaeological Museum of the Bonn Collection of the Americas (BASA Museum) and who has just started his PhD project there, I was allowed to travel to Le Mans for a month and exchange ideas about digital curating with local and regional museums as part of a sub-project of SciCoMove. The goal of this sub-project is to create a concept that will be used to develop a joint digital exhibition of all museums and collections involved in this sub-project. The Bonn team, led by Karoline Noack and Daniel Grana-Behrens, has taken on the coordination of this project.
First of all, I was able to get an impression of the collections and thematic focus of the museums of the city of Le Mans by visiting the different exhibitions and a partial inspection of the depots. Subsequently, I had the opportunity to exchange views with the SciCoMove coordinator of the museums of Le Mans, Nicolas Morel from the Musée Vert (zoological and mineralogical museum), about the collections, individual objects and about the connecting themes between our different disciplines.
Until now, the city of Le Mans was only known to me from the field of motor sports, after all, the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans are held here. This event has been portrayed in movies several times, for example in the movie “Le Mans” (1971) with Steve McQueen. However, the city is also known for its medieval inner city district Cité Plantagenêt, whose building facades are largely still preserved in the style of the 15th century. This part of the city also serves as a location for movies of national and international renown, such as “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1990) or “The Man in the Iron Mask” (1998). The Cité Plantagenêt, which at first sight resembles an open-air museum, is surrounded by a city wall from the Gallo-Roman era, which has been largely preserved. This period is characteristic for the entire region and one of the focal points of the archaeological-historical Museé Jean-Claude Boulard on the edge of the Cité Plantagenêt.


The collection of this museum, like that of the Hôtel Cabu – Musée d’Histoire et d’Archéologie in Orléans, houses numerous objects from the ‘cultural clash’ between Romans and Gauls. The Roman god Mercurius seems to have been particularly venerated in this area due to the large number of representations of him as a bronze figure. It is interesting to note that some of these figures were not made in the Roman style, but in the Gallic style. Certainly one of the most outstanding objects of this kind is the bronze figure of a wild boar in life size, which can be visited in the Hôtel Cabu. I was also impressed by a large bronze cauldron for heating over fire and by a Gallic drinking horn made of glass, both objects in the permanent exhibition of the Musée Boulard.



Based on other objects from the Musées de la Ville du Mans, I have been able to identify some revealing cross-connections both between participating institutions and between the different disciplines represented. Among others, by means of staurolites of the Musée Vert, natural mineral formations in the shape of crosses, originating from Coray, Finistère in the west of France. In the past, these stone crosses were interpreted by devotees of the church as a sign of God, thus attributing a religious-cultural meaning to these mineralogical objects.
To my surprise, I found institutional connections between the Musée de Tessé (Museum of Fine Arts) and the colleagues from the Egyptological Museum in Turin, whose director Christian Greco had given the opening speech of the second SciCoMove workshop. In the basement of the Musée de Tessé, as part of the permanent exhibition, there is a replica of Nefertari’s burial chamber. Her husband Ramses II had it built around 1250 BC. The original tomb is located in Thebes and was discovered in 1904 by the Turin Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli.


Further cross-connections between museums of different affiliations and disciplinary orientations can be drawn through well-functioning databases. Nicolas Morel was so kind to introduce me to some of the basics of digital curating in France, which surprised me positively based on my previous experiences as a museum employee in Germany. In addition to the museum’s own databases for documenting and inventorying objects, I was amazed at the digital infrastructure that exists and is being used in France. In particular, the “pop” database created by the French government for the area of cultural patrimony is fascinating (https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/). This database contains all objects from art and culture that are in the collections of French public museums as well as state-recognized private museums.
Using the search function, Nicolas Morel gave me a basic illustration of the structure and function of the database. After he typed the word “Bonn” into the search mask, a multitude of objects appeared on the screen that historically depict my hometown of Bonn. From photographs taken at the turn of the 20th century to porcelain plates, engravings, lithographs, and technical drawings of the main building of my university, there was much to see. Two photographs of a hussar regiment on horseback, taken in 1898 that are contemporary historical documents of Franco-German relations, caught my attention in particular. In no other context have I ever seen so many pictorial representations of my city before the destruction and changes caused by the two world wars or even from the interwar period.

These and other databases are used extensively by French museums to plan exhibitions and request objects on loan. This promotes networking between museums and holds enormous potential for mutual knowledge gain and for the creation of joint exhibition and research projects. On an international level, our SciCoMove project therefore also holds this potential, especially the sub-project on digital exhibition.
However, the French museums that I visited in the region and with whose staff I had the opportunity to exchange ideas are using the digital and virtual possibilities not only for the management of databases and the search for exhibition objects, but also for the analog exhibition design. Storytelling has gained in importance; visitors should and can no longer read information exclusively from the accompanying texts attached to sterile display cases. Knowledge about the objects and their contexts can also be conveyed by means of graphic novels, comics, podcasts, introductory videos, music and animations. New and further target groups are reached, knowledge is spread, polyphony in storytelling is allowed.
In short: Museums are being democratized to a certain extent.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Nathalie Richard (May 18, 2022). From Le Mans into the World Wide Web: The Advantages of Digital Techniques for Curating, Networking and Exhibition-Making. SciCoMove — Scientific Collections on the Move. Retrieved May 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/twsl
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