France, a museum allows naked visitors to visit an exhibition on naturism

A museum in Marseille, the Mucem (Musée des civilisations et de la Méditerranée), is dedicating an exhibition to naturism and invites its public to visit it, consistently, without veils: regularly organized naturist visits (one Tuesday a month according to a set schedule) allow people to see the exhibition all naked. The exhibition, entitled Paradis naturistes, opened on July 3 and continues until Dec. 9, and tells the story and current events of a practice that is widespread in France, that of naturism, which is struggling to gain a foothold in Italy, a country that is much more backward about this way of experiencing a relationship with nature and with oneself.

The idea of the exhibition, curated by Bernard Andrieu, Jean-Pierre Blanc, Amélie Lavin and David Lorenté, is that there exists today a new passion for naturism, a passion that goes hand in hand with the search for a healthy, vegetarian diet, or even with the use of natural therapies, meditation or outdoor yoga. These lifestyles, but also the rejection of diktats that burden our bodies, are all contemporary keys to understanding the issues of naturism yesterday and today. France is the world’s leading tourist destination for naturists: its temperate climate and the presence of three seas have facilitated the establishment of communities, which have few real equivalents in the rest of Europe, where naturism is practiced in a much less organized way, outside established communities. But other reasons, historical, cultural, and legal, explain the uniqueness and longevity of the communities established in France.

The exhibition seeks to answer some questions: could living naked in community to commune with nature be the secret to happiness and health? Why and how did France become a “naturist paradise”? Are naturism and nudism the same thing? As a museum located in Marseille, a Mediterranean city around which several important naturist places have developed, it seemed natural, the curators point out, that Mucem wanted to explore this singular and unifying phenomenon that is naturism, or rather naturisms, because they are plural. Thus, the exhibition brings together 600 photographs, films, magazines, everyday objects, paintings, drawings, books, prints and sculptures on the subject from the archives of naturist communities, as well as from private and public collections in France and Switzerland, including the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre, the National Library of France, the Bourdelle Museum, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes, the Museum ìof Underwater Archaeology in Adge, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Dole, the Cinémathèque de Paris, the INA, the Departmental Archives of Yvelines, the Municipal Archives of Agde, the Administrative Union of Heliopolis - île du Levant, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, the Georges-Philippe and Nathalie Vallois Gallery, the Swiss National Library in Bern, the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur, the Bern Film Library, and the Monte Verità Foundation in Ascona.

Within this framework, “naked tours,” as Mucem calls them, allow visitors to visit the museum in accordance with the theme of the exhibition. The tours are organized in collaboration with the Fédération française de naturisme and cost between 7.5 and 11 euros depending on the category of visitors, while they are free for those under 18.

France, a museum allows naked visitors to visit an exhibition on naturism

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.