01
Dreaming of Babel
Bethyl
Musée BIBLE+ORIENT · Fribourg · 2025
Dreaming of
Antiquity
Cities of Lost Memory: Dreaming of Antiquity · Musée BIBLE+ORIENT · Fribourg · 2025.
The exhibition
Artworks beside artefacts
For Fribourg, the museum did something different: each lithograph was placed in dialogue with an object or visual reference from its own collection.
The twelve-work selection was not presented as an isolated survey of Cities of Lost Memory. Instead, the museum created correspondences between Mitchell’s images and material from the ancient and medieval worlds.
The exhibition was organised by Véronique Dasen at the Musée BIBLE+ORIENT, University of Fribourg. Originally scheduled to close in September, it was extended through 25 December 2025.
12Lithographs
9 months25 March — 25 December
FribourgSwitzerland
Curatorial dialogue
When an artwork meets a museum object
The pairings did not try to prove that the modern drawings reproduced ancient objects. They created a second line of looking: from Mitchell’s composite images back toward artefacts in the museum, and from those artefacts forward again into modern memory.
02
Mosul Will Rise Again
Cylinder seal with Enkidu and Gilgamesh
03
Brotherly Love
Gold coin of Justinian II
04
Mary 2.0
Terracotta figure of Isis nursing Horus
The museum also established correspondences with Rising from the Temple’s Ashes, Respect the Gods, Superstition and The Vanished.
Opening · 25 March
Archaeology through the eye of the artist
The exhibition opened with a short lecture by Alexandre Mitchell, Art as witness to the past: archaeology through the eye of the artist, introducing the project and the twelve-work selection.
Public programme
More than an opening
25 March
Opening lecture
Art as witness to the past: archaeology through the eye of the artist.
26 March
Children’s group visit
A closed group visit to the exhibition for children.
26 March
Public guided tour
An all-welcome group tour of the exhibition.
26 March
Pandore mise en boîte de l’Antiquité à aujourd’hui
Opening lecture in the museum series Sacré genre! Dialogues around sacredness and the feminine.
27–28 March
Public guided tours
Further all-welcome group tours of the exhibition.
The selection
Twelve lithographs
The complete Fribourg selection, reconstructed from the exhibition documentation.
Institution
Musée BIBLE+ORIENT
University of Fribourg · Ruelle Laure-Dupraz 1 · CH-1700 Fribourg · Switzerland