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00:00And we are happy to introduce you to a fascinating new exhibit that just opened at Paris's Musée des Arts Décoratifs
00:09called Private Lives, From the Bedroom to Social Media.
00:13It's a journey through the evolution of privacy from the 18th century to today.
00:19From the bathroom to beauty products, from art to sex, from social media to surveillance,
00:24the exhibition examines the profound changes our private lives have undergone.
00:30And we're thrilled to welcome the curator of the exhibition, Christine Massel, to our studio.
00:35Thank you so much for joining us here on France 24 today.
00:38Now, some of the items in this exhibit, they're going to probably make people a little bit uncomfortable
00:45because it's not always comfortable to look at what we humans do in our private time.
00:51Why did you think, though, as the curator, and this was your idea for this exhibition,
00:56why did you think it was important to examine privacy?
01:00Because private lives and intimate spaces and times have changed very much the last 20 years.
01:07So I wanted to give an idea to the public through the objects and artworks that are in the show
01:13how much it has changed also since two centuries.
01:17And what we consider to be the intimate today is not what was intimate two centuries ago.
01:24So for me, it was very important to make understand that with the Internet, with social medias, with surveillance,
01:33we have a new world where the frontiers between private and public space are totally blurred
01:40and that we have to adapt to this new social reality and make our choices.
01:46And for visitors of the exhibition, through the objects that you show,
01:52is there something that you want people to rethink about their own lives and their own privacy?
01:58Yeah, for me, there was two questions, whether the intimate space is too important in our lives
02:04so that we abandon in some way the responsibility that we have as a citizen into democracy.
02:11So less public, more private.
02:14At the other hand, there is also this issue about the fact that our private life is threatened by surveillance,
02:23arching, and so we are at a time where things are quite tense and paradoxical.
02:29Everything feels a little less private, either because of our own sharing or because of surveillance that we have no control over.
02:36I wanted to ask you about two specific parts of the exhibition.
02:42One is, the first one is this photo of a homeless person who is sleeping on a bench.
02:48If we can pull up that photo.
02:51Yeah, a photograph from the French artist Mathieu Pernot, where you see a person sleeping on a bench.
02:59And I chose this photograph for the part that I dedicated to the intimate in times of precarity.
03:07Because in fact, when you look at this picture, you understand that when you have no objects around you,
03:13you don't have any private life and then no identity and that objects define us.
03:20So I also I did some photographs around hospital, migrants camps or prisons to show that the objects that we own define the intimate space we can have.
03:35Right. And obviously, if you don't have a home, even having private space and creating private space is especially difficult.
03:44Yeah, sure.
03:45The second part I wanted to ask you about, because I feel like this is maybe not something that people would always think about when they think about our private lives and the shifting privacy,
03:54but is the role of social media in when it comes to our private lives.
03:58You feature Instagram accounts in the exhibit.
04:02Can you just talk a little bit about how to you social media has changed or blurred the lines between our public and private lives?
04:11Yeah, with social media, you have these exposures of people who want to be famous or who are famous already.
04:19And in fact, they make you feel that they share their intimacy or intimate space with you.
04:27And that's how you become the follower.
04:29I wanted to ask these people who do that as a job, what is the intimate for them?
04:35So they wrote some statements.
04:38And what appeared clearly is that, in fact, they keep their intimacy and private life quite secret.
04:45And the intimate that they show is very constructed.
04:48And I wanted the public to be aware or so about this difference between real intimacy and constructed one.
04:59I think this is something that's really hard for a lot of people.
05:03We hear these studies of how social media impacts confidence and self-esteem.
05:07And it's really hard for people to understand where the line is with privacy and public lives online.
05:13I think things have begun in the 2000s when we got the Big Brother on television.
05:20So it was the first moment, I think, that was quite shocking at the time during which you could look at people exposing their privacy.
05:28And so now it seems common.
05:31Also, it's a danger, potential danger or so, because images can be stolen.
05:37And you can also, in fact, participate to something that you don't control.
05:44But at the other hand, I think that people like Lena Mafu, for example, in a situation came to visit us,
05:51is a wonderful help to bring younger visitors to the show because she's very much followed.
05:58On the other hand, the older people who come to the show, they really discover what is influence and social media.
06:06And they really get into something that they are not familiar with.
06:10So somehow it's also a sort of transmission to various generations that I try to make possible in this show.
06:19Now, the show's been open for just a couple of weeks now.
06:22But what kind of initial reaction are you seeing?
06:25Has there been anything that's surprised you?
06:27Yeah, I like to see women at the beginning of the show looking at this documentary of 1967 about the Salon of the Women of Interiors,
06:38which happened in Paris and where you see some very misogynistic remarks about the fact that women should stay at home and do embroideries and so on.
06:52And to see younger and older women laugh at this documentary is for me a satisfaction to see them really like going over the statement that still existed 50 years ago.
07:05And finally, I want to ask you about the future of privacy.
07:09I mean, it's a history of looking back.
07:12But when you think about what the future is going to look like 10 years from now, 20 years ago or 20 years from now, when it comes to our private lives, what do you envision?
07:22It's not very clear yet, but I think that artificial intelligence may change again the situation.
07:30But we are entering into a time where appearance and the way we look became so important that I don't see things changing very soon.
07:41But maybe a consciousness about this phenomenon and this maybe excess of individualism and narcissism could arose in our minds through this kind of exhibition.
07:55And thanks to the catalogue that people can read and deepen this thinking and understand that we need maybe to think about more common.
08:05Christine Massel, curator of private lives from the bedroom to social media.
08:11Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to checking out this exhibition myself.
08:15And it is running through the end of March 2025 here in Paris at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
08:22If you want to check it out yourself as well.
08:24Thank you so much.
08:26That's all for this newscast.