Les grands âges

From April 8, 2026 to January 3, 2027, the Musée de l'Homme presents “The Grand Ages.” Born from the meeting between photographer Nikos Aliagas and biodemographer Samuel Pavard, this exhibition crosses art and science to illuminate old age as a biological, demographic, and social reality.

The exhibition, arranged across 250 m² in the Foyer Germaine Tillion, questions our relationship with time, the place of elders in our societies, and intergenerational ties.

When human longevity sheds light on evolution of life. The journey begins with a change of scale. Human longevity is set within the history of life, far beyond our own species.

The black and white photographs by Nikos Aliagas accompany this journey. In a sharp and contrasted style, everyday scenes and portraits make visible what often remains silent: the dignity of aging bodies, the persistence of gestures, the invisible transmission between generations.

Nikos Aliagas, black and white photography. This first section establishes a little-known fact. Even when life expectancy was low – notably due to high infant mortality – it was not uncommon for some individuals to reach, or even exceed, their sixties.

Elderly people have always held a crucial role in human societies: caring for grandchildren, transmitting knowledge and material goods, mediating conflicts, contributing to collective decisions.

Samuel Pavard, scientific curator and professor at the National Museum of Natural History, shows that elders contributed to the cognitive, social, and cultural evolution of our species. Nikos Aliagas' “The Grand Ages” at the Musée de l'Homme thus shows that old age fits within an anthropological continuity.

Far from the common idea of a recent phenomenon, it has always been part of human societies. Aliagas’ photographic work extends a humanist and anthropological approach, attentive to embodied memory, family ties, and traces left by existence.

Portraits of old age between dignity and vulnerability. The exhibition then turns to today's grand ages. Life expectancy now exceeds 70 years in the majority of countries in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and America.

New age classes emerge, and the proportion of centenarians continues to grow. Elderly people represent a major public health and social policy challenge.

This section highlights two opposing representations of contemporary old age. On one hand, a happy, active, and useful old age.

On the other, isolated, dependent, precarious, suffering individuals. Nikos Aliagas’ photographs do not choose between these two realities.

They show both in scenes where dignity persists even in fragility. Aliagas, who has photographed faces of passing time for several decades, captures in the intimate what demographic analysis observes at the societal level.

Nikos Aliagas, Pas vus, pas pris, black and white photograph. Pas vus, pas pris Focus on the Work. Pas vus, pas pris is the photograph chosen for the exhibition poster. In black and white, it shows an elderly couple seated at a café terrace.

The woman, wearing a hat and sunglasses, calls out to the photographer with liveliness. The man beside her raises a camera towards the lens, in a gesture of mutual response.

The scene exudes a joyful and spontaneous energy. Nikos Aliagas captured this encounter instinctively, without knowing his subjects’ identities.

Only three years later, while preparing the exhibition poster, did the team identify the couple: Laura Mirè, a figure of the Italian fashion world, and Italo Zannier, an art historian born in 1932 in Spilimbergo, the first holder of a chair in photography history in Italy.

This chance meeting between photographers – one a famous French presenter-photographer, the other a founding father of photography history in Italy – illustrates Aliagas’ philosophy: photographic encounters “never happen without reason.” The title itself plays on double meaning: the mutual invisibility of the two photographers discovering each other, and the spontaneity of the shot.

The diversity of ways of aging, the place each society chooses to grant its elders: so many questions that the portraits and scientific data illuminate together.

Protecting elders amid environmental crises. The final part opens on the future. Will we be able to protect the elderly from upcoming crises?

Severe heat waves, unprecedented health crises, epidemics of cancers and chronic or degenerative diseases caused by pollutants: these threats weigh on human health in general and on the survival of older people in particular. Nikos Aliagas’ photographs give a face to this urgency.

They remind us that behind demographic curves and climate scenarios, there are bodies, hands, and gazes. The exhibition concludes with this open question, reaffirming the legitimacy of a collective desire: to live longer lives in a world that respects natural balances.