The Groote Museum of ARTIS: putting people in their place

The new ARTIS museum invites you to reflect: what is the place of man and nature on this globe?

Occasionally, overwhelming sounds of nature reverberate through the room. Mosquitoes buzzing, lions roaring, people laughing. Thunder and lightning, including lighting effects. The big museum, a new museum in a beautifully forgotten, rediscovered and restored Artis building, inspires humility. Even in future conferences in this room, the sound will remain on. If the sounds swell, you will have to deal with it for a while. After all, everything that lives must take care of itself.

People and animals don’t differ that much, that’s the central idea that this museum exhibits. Study the branches of trees, the branches of the bronchi in the lungs, the complex road network in Europe or the human nervous system and you will see the similarities. See how coordinated flocks of birds move and see how a peloton of cyclists is little more than a flock of people on wheels.

The Groote Museum, for example, specializes in generalism. It is not the frontiers of our scientific knowledge that offer the most exciting perspectives, but the connections between museum pieces. The interpretation of the world as one large ecosystem is nothing new under the sun, but it was ripe for renewed and compelling justification.

The most exciting experience the museum offers is the Perfume Tunnel. With every step you take in the dark, silent space, new intense scent combinations permeate the nose. In people too, smells evoke more emotions, thoughts or memories than you might think. The Groote Museum combines illustrations and light installations with stimulating works of art. Nowhere do you read it explicitly, but the message of the exhibition is clear. The central place that man claims on earth is not justified.