Silence exhibition at the Cité des Sciences

From December 10, 2024 to August 31, 2025, the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie invites you to immerse yourself in a sensory and reflective experience with the temporary exhibition Silence!
(designed by the Museum of Communication, Bern, and adapted by Universcience).

An unprecedented plunge into silence

In a world where noise is omnipresent and silence rare and precious, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity to explore our relationship with calm. Whether soothing, frightening or mysterious, silence is revealed in all its complexity and contradictions through a minimalist scenography and an interactive sound trail. Each visit becomes an individual experience, with the content of the exhibition adapting to the visitor's movements via headphones.

A multi-stage tour

The exhibition begins with a visual and audio introduction that transports you to a snowy landscape... a first encounter with silence. The journey continues through different themes:

• Noise and noise pollution: a reflection on the perception and impact of noise in our daily lives, with interactive experiments to test your knowledge of decibels.
• The experience of absolute silence: A visit to rare environments, such as an anechoic chamber, where the almost total absence of sound reveals unexpected sensations.
• The paradoxes of silence: Through stories like those of hermit Christopher Knight and writer Sara Maitland. Discover the ambivalence of silence - between a quest for serenity and a source of anguish.
• Histories and symbolism of silence: A historical retrospective that explores the place of silence through the ages, from ancient texts to contemporary issues linked to new technologies.
• Silence in art and the city: An immersion in emblematic places, such as a concert hall playing a work by John Cage or a mysterious hotel room, where silence mingles with noise.

A scientific and sensory voyage

As part of the "Chemins de traverse" editorial line, which explores science where it is least expected, the "Silence" exhibition demonstrates that this notion raises scientific, societal and philosophical questions.

Accessible to visitors aged 15 and over, in French, English and German.

See other exhibitions in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis.