Past exhibition
2024 will see France host both the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games in Paris. The "Paralympic Stories" exhibition at the Panthéon highlights the history of the fight for emancipation and equality.
Every day
10am - 6.30pm
Admission
Included in the entrance ticket to the Panthéon. Choose "Visit of the monument" in the e-ticketing service.
Free admission for under 26-year-old residents of the EU
Public
The exhibition is accessible to all, including people with disabilities.
The Paralympic Games were first held in the mid-20th century and have gone from strength to strength, changing the way we see and think about people with disabilities.
The "Paralympic History" exhibition will look at those who, through their roles within the Paralympic movement, have shaped a history based on pride in difference and demands for a more inclusive society.
The exhibition echoes the great men and women who are buried in the Panthéon and whose defence of the values of the French republic is seen to deserve official recognition from their country; notably including Louis Braille, the inventor of the tactile writing system.
Combining archives, posters, photographs, sports equipment, artefacts and audiovisual documents, the exhibition highlights the gradual integration of athletes with a variety of disabilities, on the one hand, and the changes in the discourse, images and materials associated with competitive sport, on the other.
Curators: Anne Marcellini and Sylvain Ferez
Scientific advisor: Pierre-Olaf Schut
© Collections du Musée national du Sport, Nice
Ensuring the accessibility of the exhibition and its contents to all audiences, and to those with disabilities in particular, is an issue of vital importance.
The staging has been designed to ensure a comfortable visit for everyone, with furniture at the right height, screens at the right angle and sufficient room to move around.
It will include seated consultation stations for listening to audio content (sound portraits of athletes and texts from the exhibition read aloud), as well as an area for watching videos in French Sign Language and International Sign Language.
A multi-sensory route will be available throughout the exhibition, interspersed with tactile drawings and artefacts to touch and accompanied by captions in Braille and large print.
Audio description content will be available via easy-tofind QR codes.
The exhibition texts will be translated in videos in French Sign Language (LSF) and International Sign (IS) language that can be accessed via QR codes throughout the exhibition and on a special screen.
All audiovisual material will be subtitled in French and English.
A booklet to accompany your visit in easy-to-read and understand French (FALC) is available to visitors on request from reception.
A virtual tour of the monument’s crypt will be offered alongside the exhibition on a consultation device suitable for use by those with reduced mobility.
The Paralympic movement is paving the way for the emancipation of people who are “differently able(d)”. Sport offers a certain social visibility and is an effective platform on which to transform the collective imagination.
© Collections du Musée national du Sport, Nice
The elite athletes that we admire today are the fruit of a history and a militant struggle that has paved the way for recognition, a history written by great athletes, Paralympic medallists, individuals who would not naturally have had access to such status. This exhibition reveals the new heroes that have come to represent success and social value in diversity.
The exhibition is a winner of the "Inspiration, Creation and Disability" call for projects and is supported by Paris 2024 and the French Ministry of Culture.
This exhibition is supported by the Safran Group, the Handicap & Société Fund and the Visio Foundation, which helps visually impaired children and adults.
