Le musée du Feutre de Mouzon (Ardennes)

Abstract

The museum of wool felt at Mouzon (Ardennes) is a recent museum, opened in 1988. It is closely associated with local history and with the existence of one of the last felt factories in France, but it is also representative of the broader tendencies within the eco-museum movement in France. The extension of what we consider to be heritage and the phenomenon of deindustrialisation have given the museum a role as a conservatory of Mouzon’s industrial memory and skills. But when industrial activity enters the museum, this inevitably changes the museum’s status and brings new issues to the fore. And for a museum focused on a particular material, wool felt, and on the techniques of felting, the evolution of production, which is more and more artisanal, raises the question of how representative the museum’s collections are. This article sets out then to explain the creation of the felt museum in its context in the 1980s and to question the relations between the museum and the production system of wool felt.

Keywords

• wool felt
• Ardennes
• textile production
• industry
• craftwork
• eco-museum