The superb Château-Musée de Bélesta is a museum of prehistory in the Pyrénées-Orientales department. It was created around the collections from the archaeological site of the cave of Bélesta.
The castle houses one of the three Charles Rennie Mackintosh interpretation centres in Rousillon.
Every year, the museum presents new temporary exhibitions.
At the beginning of 2023 the museum is organising an exhibition by the artist Francesca CARUANA.
The opening of the exhibition took place on Sunday 29 January 2023
Francesca is a Maltese-born artist and currently lives in Saleilles (Pyrénées-Orientales).
After taking a National Diploma of Fine Arts in Montpellier, Francesca Caruana studied aesthetics at Paris 1-Sorbonne and then the semiotics of art. She holds a doctorate in plastic arts and art sciences and was a teacher-researcher at the University of Toulouse Le Mirail from 1998 to 2005, and, since 2005, at the University of Perpignan. In charge of the cultural mission for the UPVD (2010/2012)
She excels in many fields: painting, writing, installation from residual objects, creation of shows from paintings and sounds,
author of a series for the creative workshops of Radio-France, curator of exhibitions…
The exhibition offers a look at the archaeological idea. The “digs” allow us to discover objects that have settled in their environment. Bones in the earth, objects in the sea… The ocean has its own floating sediments. The seabed, made up of eddies and high water, has been ossifying with plastics for too long. Our contemporary archaeology is plastic waste, stratified and compacted in the water into sovereign islands. We throw our waste away for an aquatic eternity but no longer able to bear our own bones, we burn them. After that, we often scatter them on the surface of the sea. I want to make sure that plastic takes the place of a linen support, the ancestor of our shrouds; that squared-off bones take the place of materials, that the crossing of plastic and bone ends the natural versus the artificial, but celebrates together the baculum, the memory of the penile bone that made us innocent beings. We have lost our innocence, sanitized by … our waste. To attempt a crossing or blue death is a wave of bones, or a poem in full decline. FC
SCHEDULE
From 15 June to 14 September
The museum is open every day from 2pm to 7pm.
From 15 September to 14 June
The museum is open from 2pm to 5.30pm except on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
And to find out more about the museum and the historical heritage of Bélesta click on this link which takes you to the museum’s website.