A major exhibition at the heart of the "L’appel des profondeurs" cycle
The culmination of the "L'appel des profondeurs" cycle, deployed across the network of the Musée national de la Marine, this major exhibition presented in Paris in autumn 2026 offers an immersion in the long history of underwater exploration.
Through the arts, literature, sciences and techniques, it questions the reasons that drove human societies to cross the limits of the visible world to explore the ocean depths.
Exploring a hostile and inaccessible world
Beneath the surface, human beings confront an extreme environment: pressure, darkness, cold and isolation make the seabed naturally inaccessible. To this physical barrier is added a symbolic and cultural frontier: since Antiquity, the abyss has fed myths and stories populated by fantastic creatures. The exhibition thus questions this tension between fear and fascination: why want to explore such a hostile world?
From Antiquity to the present day: a scientific and cultural epic
Between imagination and reality, the overall history of this great epic unfolds over more than 800 m² in a chronological route, from Antiquity to the present day, inviting a journey to the four corners of the globe. Around 280 works are presented, some of them exceptional and rarely exhibited, drawn from the collections of major institutions: biological specimens, archaeological objects, ethnographic collections, manuscripts, scientific instruments, diving suits, models and ship models, paintings, photographs, sculptures, decorative arts, contemporary artworks and video installations.
Composed of four major temporal sections, the exhibition is designed as a chronological immersion in the rich history of human adventures under the seas. In a scenography with a mysterious, muted atmosphere, which stimulates the imagination and invites contemplation, visitors dive down to the depths of the Cretaceous before climbing back up the centuries to the present day. Like moments of breathing space, four thematic cabinets punctuate the visit to explore universal subjects: foundational narratives, cosmogonies and great initiatory and legendary frescoes; the octopus, a tentacled animal with many facets; sunken worlds, between fantasized visions of lost cities and projects for underwater habitats; and finally the mermaid, the mythical undersea figure par excellence.
Between imagination, scientific figures and world cultures
From sea monsters to the installations of visual artist Monira Al Qadiri, from the explorations of Commander Cousteau to the advances of oceanographer Marie Tharp, including the adventures of Aquaman, the cinema of Jean Painlevé or the feats of the Ama, free-diving women divers of Japan, a sensitive dive into fascinating worlds awaits visitors!