THE EVENT « TARA IN THE HEART OF PARIS » IS CO-ORGANISED BY AGNES B AND THE PARIS CITY HALL

Until the First of February 2009, the polar schooner Tara will be visible on the ‘port des Champs Elysées’, right bank of the pont Alexandre III. This exceptional presence will be accompanied by the exhibition “Tara, journey to the heart of the climate machine” that will be shown for the first time.

The public will thus be able to discover the exhibition devoted to the Tara Damocles expedition. An expedition that the schooner accomplished from September 2006 until January 2008 with 20 men who took turns onboard. The Tara schooner drifted during 507 days across the Arctic Ocean within a region that is essential to the future of the planet’s climate. Tara Damocles was an unprecedented human and scientific adventure.
This is a sensory experience, a source of reliable information on the climate and the Arctic, an invitation to travel to which agnès b and the Paris City Hall invite all Parisians and visitors to the French capital.

Through visual, sound, light and simulation devices as well as cartography, the “Tara, journey to the heart of the climate machine” exhibition will give access to science on the move, a science that is everyone’s business. This exhibition is intended for the general as well as for the young public.

The scientific results of the European programme Damocles that gathers 45 laboratories and of the Tara mission will be revealed at the time of the “Tara, journey into the heart of the climate machine” exhibition.

In between two major expeditions, Tara who is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme is calling for the first time at Paris to testify what she has witnessed in the Arctic and explain what she will undertake across the oceans of the globe in the future.


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


Access:
Metro, Lines 1 and 13, Champs-Elysées-Clémenceau/ RER, Line C, Invalides/Bus, Lines 72, 83 and 93

Price and visiting hours
Open every day between 10 am and 6 pm except on Monday morning and Tuesday all day.
Shut on the 25th of December and the 1st of January.
Entrance fee €5 and free for children under 12.
Reservation: FNAC stores, by phone at 08 92 684 694 (0,34€ per minute), www.fnac.com

For school children:
Between the 15th of November and the 11th of January, each Tuesday will be reserved to school children between 9 am and 12 pm and from 2 pm to 5 pm. Groups of all levels (primary, secondary schools, and university) will be able to visit the exhibition upon registration guided by the pedagogical information cards conceived by the Paris CRDP.
Visits of Tara and scientific workshops led by the Planète Sciences association will be organised for school children.
The « Tara, journey to the heart of the climate machine » scenography is accomplished by the agency NC, the graphics design by the studio be-pôles and the museography by Marie Cuisset and Anne Jaffrennou. Exhibition content will be both in French and English.

Event partners
Agnès b., Mairie de Paris, VNF, Primagaz, Damocles, International Polar Year, United Nations Environment Programme, France Info, Arte, Planète Thalassa, Paris CRDP, Cap l’Orient, FNAC, Planète Sciences and be-pôles.

At the same time:

- Tara will be present at the Grand Palais, the European city of science, on the polar space with the Institut Paul Emile Victor from the 14th to the 16th of November
- Tara will also be present at the Paris Nautical Fair from the 5th to the 14th of December 2008 through an exhibition on the footbridge that links the two main Fair Halls as well as on the stand A14
- The coffee table book on the expedition published by Geo-Gallimard: “Tara, 500 days of Arctic drift” by Francis Latreille and Michèle Aulagnon will come out at the end of the month of October.