This exhibition can be seen at the Fondation Clément in Martinique from December 14, 2025, to March 15, 2026.
Since December 14, 2025, the Clément Foundation in the town of Le François in Martinique has been presenting a large and magnificent exhibition on the first peoples of our region entitled: “To the Origins of the Caribbean: Taínos & Kalinagos”. This exhibition, which was designed by the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum in Paris and curator André Delpuech (chief heritage curator, Centre Alexandre-Koyré, EHESS), is also the first of this scale dedicated to the main Amerindian societies that occupied the Caribbean archipelago when Europeans arrived at the end of the 15th century.
More than 330 major works from thirty cultural institutions in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, mainland France (including the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum), Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and the Vatican, trace “more than 6,000 years of history through a rich and well-documented journey, highlighting the cultures, skills, and beliefs of these founding civilizations”. In addition, the public will also discover contemporary works for a dialogue between ancestral heritage and current creation.
The Fondation Clément is organizing several events around this 600 m² exhibition, such as guided tours, special tours for children and teenagers, and a round table discussion on current archaeological excavations. On December 16 at 5:00 pm, a conference was held at the Schoelcher University Library on the themes “The Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles: myths and presences with Alloüebéra, the carbuncle snake of Dominica: persistent Kalinago myth and volcanic facts” by Guillaume Lalubie and “Kalinago presences in Guadeloupe in the 19th and 20th centuries” by André Delpuech.
“To the Origins of the Caribbean: Taínos & Kalinagos” is open to the public free of charge and without reservation every day until March 15, 2026.
