Alvyna Billod

Review of La Cité des Insectes

Accumulation of sometimes dusty objects in rooms "...

Accumulation of sometimes dusty objects in rooms "themes" without conducting wire, the city of insects looks like a dilapidated museum poorly maintained, poorly thought for lack of resources and creativity. From the reception (fast and shipped) we left the small corridor, small room we come back and we go back to the home, we go to the right, small room, stairs and then we come back and we rerepasse in front of the home and then down in the basement and we go back to the reception. A person with a disability or reduced mobility will in no way be able to visit independently and will be assisted from beginning to end because of the stairs, changes of level and the incessant coming and going of visitors (jostling) as in a crowded house. The old-fashioned and outdated rooms are overloaded with frames, information, objects and children drop quickly while adults try to find their way. In the basement, hung on the wall, a strip of paper typed by a great beginner in word processing goes through the geological periods to the edge of the table of pithecanthropists, pushed by the evolution, unaware of dragging behind them the millions of years before prehistory, just as we did elsewhere. Interactions based switches, large buttons that work or not, "games" broken or very worn and more than sketchy smile without capturing the interest, such as old signs with a plastic hook to catch with a pseudo butterfly net with a boing boing spring effect. In the vivarium room, the youngest ones caught in the dark and the absence of reassuring codes seek the hand of their parents who wear them at the height of the minimalist windows. In one of them, a six-legged corpse remained in a troubled corner contemplating the visitor who for a moment forgets the object of his coming and imagines that a big toad or chameleon hiding behind the panel sulk his lunch ... Before recovering: flute we are in the City of Insects finally! During the whole visit, on the pretext of a treasure hunt, one is bored to search foolishly for placards taped here and there and in the empty outdoor space not to say at half-mast. A "theater" (rather a tinkering cabanon), with an amp in agony, looped not a film but a trailer of the tiny film taking viewers who have paid a heavy price once again for pigeons. At the end of this uncomfortable stroll, if he still has any inclination to believe in this place for the sake of his passionate keeper (too much to really share) or for the protection of the tiny, it is definitely eradicated by the gondola of Fluorescent flusher guns made in China sold for around 5 euros each as the last witness to the total lack of credibility on biodiversity and the postulate of respect for living well sold, for once.
Not the city of insects is not one because the humans who shaped it have forgotten to organize, to think, to create a real pedagogical project, fun and modern, up to counterfeit solidarity and ecological drive who guides the visitor to them, finally allowing him to zigzag the cumbersome critters, that we will have understood!
Our only and big disappointment in this beautiful region.