Cinquantenaire Museum 26.10.2017 – 29.04.2018 Special guest : Jean Paul Forest

Oceania, an infinite continent suspended between the immensity of the sky and the sea, is still linked, in the imagination, to the great voyages of discovery and to the unknown.

60,000 years before today, the first colonists arrived from Africa and began to inhabit Papua and Australia. Between the 3rd millennium BCE and 1,000 CE new seafarers from South-East Asia colonised the Centre and the East of the Pacific. Not until the 18th century did Europeans, headed by James Cook, begin to explore this vast area systematically. Thanks to Henri Lavachery’s 1934 expedition to Easter Island, and the return on board the ship Mercator, Belgium made its own contribution to increasing scientific knowledge of these mysterious lands.

Old maps, model ships and archival documents, as well as the reconstitution of a walkway on board the Mercator, invite the visitor to cross the great ocean in the footsteps of these explorers from the past. In addition to evoking these various journeys, the exhibition will showcase the rich collections of the Cinquantenaire Museum, the MIM and the Royal Museum of Central Africa. More than 250 objects, from Papua, New-Caledonia, Micronesia, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island, exhibit the richness and originality of the achievements of the inhabitants of Oceania.

Special guest : Jean Paul Forest Through the work of the Tahitian artist Jean Paul Forest, the final room of the Oceania exhibition displays a continent rooted in contemporaneity, far removed from the age-old folk clichés to which Oceania is too often reduced. Jean Paul Forest has lived and worked in Polynesia for many years. The Tahitian valley of Papeno’o provides his energy and his inspiration, as well as the river-polished pebbles which form the basis of his creations. On the borders of land art and of minimalism, his works – stones broken and stitched together, twisted pebbles, works installed in the landscape – witness the transience and the fragility of an ecosystem perpetually at risk. The exhibition, under the patronage of Their Majesties the King and the Queen of the Belgians, is organised in collaboration with the Royal Museum of Central Africa. With the support of National Geographic Netherlands, Air Tahiti Nui, the Museum of Tahiti and the Islands, and the Mercator Sailing Ship foundation, among others. practical information Oceania Travels through the immensity

Special guest Jean Paul Forest 26.10.2017 – 29.04.2018

Cinquantenaire Museum 10 Parc du Cinquantenaire B - 1000 Brussels www.kmkg-mrah.be | [email protected] +32 (0)2 741 73 31 #expoceania opening hours Tu-Fr: 10:00-17:00 Sa-Su: 10:00-18:00 closed : Monday last tickets 1 hour before closing time admission fee € 15 / € 12 / € 5 online tickets http://ticket.kmkg-mrah.be groups +32 (0)2 741 73 02 restaurant ‘le midi 50’ +32 (0)2 735 87 54 | [email protected] access train BXL-Central (+ metro) & Schuman subway Schuman, Merode bus & tram 22, 27, 61, 80, 81 parking near the museum exposhop +32 (0)2 741 73 62 | [email protected] catalogue available activities There are special circuits for children and for the visually impaired, and a play area with games for children is provided.