A new craze for practising nudity in nature is currently emerging. It goes hand in hand with the quest for a healthy, vegetarian diet, the use of alternative therapies, meditation or yoga in the great outdoors. Such lifestyles, coupled with the rejection of the dictates that weigh down our bodies, are all key to understanding the issues at stake in naturism.

Thanks to its climate and the presence of three seas, France is the world's leading tourist destination for naturists, which has helped to establish communities with few equivalents elsewhere in Europe, where naturism is practised outside established groups. However, other factors (historical, cultural, legal) also play a part. As a museum concerned with society and around which a number of major naturist sites have developed, it was only fitting that the Mucem should explore naturism (in its many kinds) as a social phenomenon. Is living nude in a community to be at one with nature the secret to happiness and health? Are naturism and nudism the same thing? Why has France become a "naturist paradise"?

This exhibition takes you on a journey to discover the very first naturist communities, pioneers who set up in France and Switzerland in the 1920s, and to learn how naturism is practised and experienced today.


Admission included with the Rencontres d’Arles 2024 pass