Two different ways of looking merge as we go through the succession of rooms to witness the wealth and the freedom of a civilisation having to face the threats of desertification and of the worldwide economy :

• a scientific approach, regular returns, photos taken, sounds recorded, filmed then written up by Suzanne and Edmond Bernus (field notes, photos, films, sound recordings, articles);

• An impressionist approach , a unique journey in the Hoggar, drawn then painted by Georges Guinot (Sketchbooks and around 50 paintings, oil painting on wood and canvases).

This exhibition put up by Laurent Guillaut, chief curator, was enhanced by the help given by Georges Guinot Association, its president, Jacqueline Froger-Guinot, by the Research Institute for developement (represented by Fabien Bordeles, in charge of the archives), by Caroline, Cecile and Jacques Bernus, by Pierre Boiley and Ahmed Ousmane.

From the second half of the XXth century, some groups of Touaregs, and in particular the Illabakan tribe from the Azawak region in Nigeria, suffering from the “natural cycles” deregulation, cycles to which their fate*had been linked from time immemorial, decided to entrust some of them to the careful task of transmitting their gestures and their voices. Let us look at the scenes, let us show our interest in their habitat and their furniture, let us look at their medicine, their knowledge, let us listen to their songs and let us take into consideration the archaeological and anthropological works of the Bernus, the Georges Guinots’ paintings, not only as archives, witnesses or works of art, but also as vectors through which is expressed with vigour and force a human reality already half a century old.
Laurent Guillaut, in the exhibition Catalogue