摘要：The intangible heritage is not easy to present in a museum
exhibition, and this is perhaps especially so in the case of
what the 2003 UNESCO Intangible Heritage Convention
terms ‘knowledge and practices concerning nature and the
universe’. The Brazilian Federal Museum of Astronomy and
Related Sciences (MAST), Rio de Janeiro, initiated an
exhibition and educational programme on this theme for
International Museums Week in 2004, focusing particularly
on four very different cosmologies (i.e. narratives that
attempt to explain the origin of the Universe): the Biblical
story in Genesis, the contemporary scientific ‘Big Bang’
theory, and the creation stories of two Brazilian indigenous
populations: the Tukâno people of the Amazon Region, and
the Guarani of southern Brazil and some neighbouring
countries. The event, called Myths of Origin - man and his
comprehension of the Universe and of the planet on which
he lives, consisted of a conceptual, sensory and educational
experience whose principal objective was to challenge
preconceptions while questioning also the visitors’
perceptions which arise from an educational system where
many of these ideas are taught as absolute truths.
Following Paulo Freire’s theory of learning and a non-
restrictive understanding of the sciences, we chose to
present the four different narratives on an equal basis and
invited the visitor to explore these without preconceptions.
The underlying objective was to establish a dialogue among
these diverse discourses about the cosmos, which we
hoped would encourage visitors to take a critical view of the
sciences and the way they are interpreted in museums.
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