Enhancing maritime cultural heritage
The Drassm counts among its missions the enhancement of maritime cultural property. Until recently, this promotion has mainly involved temporary exhibitions or permanent presentations organized within museum spaces.
The valuation in situ
Today, and more specifically aimed at the public of sport divers, new practices to highlight collections are proposed. One of them led to the reimmering in 2010, in port of Marseille, a lot of amphorae from the mythical excavations conducted in the 1950s by Fernand Benoit and Jacques Yves Cousteau on the site of the Grand Congloué. This initiative made it possible to offer to the curiosity of the public an evocation of the loads of amphorae which the Cousteau team had formerly to carry out the study. Entrusted to the care of local diving centres, these two sites quickly established themselves as privileged places to raise public awareness of the protection of heritage and to allow them to access underwater heritage sites.
The success of this first initiative has determined the Drassm to push its thinking and to consider the valorization in situ, not only of reconstituted sites but also of authentic wrecks. This approach could be implemented in marine parks.
Exhibitions and museums
After study and publication, maritime cultural properties are entrusted by the Drassm to public collections in order to satisfy the curiosity of the greatest number. Nearly a hundred museums located in mainland France and the French Overseas Region have their permanent collection of seabed furniture. Some institutions, such as the Tatihou Maritime Museum in the English Channel, even owe their creation to the existence of important underwater archaeological collections.
Beyond this deposit policy, public discourse is based on a sustained strategy of temporary exhibitions. Some, logically classified as of national importance, attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Other exhibitions, which are more confidential, make it possible to showcase more targeted collections at the regional or even departmental level. We can mention in particular the presentations punctually organized in the exhibition hall of the Drassm in Marseille or those that this department regularly sets up to sensitize certain regional territory.
Finally, the Drassm regularly lends its support to the realization of exhibitions organized on themes that go beyond the framework of underwater archaeology. In addition to presenting the results of underwater archaeological excavations to the public, these exhibitions also very often provide an opportunity to assess the state of research on a given subject.
Partager la page