A HISTORIC PLACE AT THE HEART OF CAYENNE

The Musée des cultures guyanaises is housed inside a fully renovated old creole house at the heart of the city of Cayenne. Founded in 1995, it became a public regional institution (établissement public régional) in 1998 and now has the label « Musée de France ».

A rich collection to show French Guiana's cultural diversity

The Musée des cultures guyanaises curates and shows a collection of ethnographic objects collected among the ethnic groups that compose French Guiana: the first native Indians settlements, the Maroons, the Creoles and more recent immigration groups such as the Hmong, Brazilians or Haitians. The museum also has a fund of Indian and colonial archaeological objects as well as historical iconographic documents and documentary sound archives.

The museum's missions

1. to collect, curate and study the cultural objects produced by the ethnic groups and traditional societies in French Guiana;
2. to collect the testimonies on knowledge and techniques that might transform or disappear;
3. to exhibit and highlight the objects and documentary collections thus constituted;
4. to show French Guiana's cultural heritage to the largest audience possible and to contribute in the diffusion of knowledge via exhibitions and publications;

Two places to be discovered on the Madame Payé Street

• On '78, rue Madame Payé', the museum presents temporary exhibitions. A documentation centre specialised on cultures, ethnic groups and traditional societies present on the Guiana Shield can also be visited.
• On '54, rue Madame Payé' you will discover the reconstitution of an old creole house that belonged to Herménégilde Tell, Félix Éboué's father-in-law, as well as the life its inhabitants lived in the city of Cayenne.

A changing museum

The adoption of a new scientific and cultural program has drawn the first lines of a new project, which will gather together the Musée des cultures guyanaises, the Musée départemental Alexandre Franconie, The archives départementales and the Service régional de l'inventaire (regional service for inventory) inside one unique institution: the Maison des Cultures et des Mémoires Guyanaises. This new cultural and exhibition centre should be housed in the former hospital Jean Martial, at the heart of the city.