About the Host Institutions

BIBLIOTHEQUE BERNHEIM

Bibliotheque Bernheim or Bernheim Library is a public institution created in 1907. It is New Caledonia’s central library and it collects the legal deposit of the territory. The library is open to the public in three sites: one in the capital city, Nouméa, and two on the northern part of the island in Poindimié and Koné. It also maintains a centralised library management system serving more than 20 libraries on the archipelago, providing them with complementary collections, activities, and digital services.

The library is partly housed in a structure which served as the original pavilion of New Caledonia at the World Expo of 1900 held in Paris, France. In 1901, the pavilion was dismantled and rebuilt in Noumea, with the  financial support of  the philanthrophist businessman Lucien Bernheim whom the library is  named after.

THE TJIBAOU CULTURAL CENTRE

As a part of the Matignon Agreements, the French state and Caledonian representatives (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front / Rally for Caledonia in the Republic) agreed on Jean Marie Tjibaou’s request to create the Agency for the Development of Kanak Culture (ADCK) a French state public institution, with the following missions:

– To promote the Kanak linguistic and archeological heritage

– To support Kanak contemporary forms of expression, especially in the field of handcraft, broadcasting technology and art

– To develop cross regional interaction, especially in the South Pacific

– To plan out courses of study

On the narrow Tina Peninsula of approximately 8 hectares, given by the Noumea Council, the Tjibaou Cultural Centre was inaugurated in May 1998 and was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. The Centre is a place of identical assertiveness and cultural gathering and creation.

Through its original configuration, the Tjibaou Cultural Centre offers a lot of cultural activities as you can find there an art centre, exhibitions spaces, show areas and a specialized multimedia library. Depending on its activity, the audience changes quantitatively and sociologically.

Transferred to New-Caledonia in 2012, newly named ADCK-CCT aims to search, collect and promote the kanak cultural heritage, to initiate and develop kanak artistic creation, to provoke the emergence of common cultural practices and references, to be a pole of regional and international exchanges

The Tjibaou Cultural Centre recorded 98 405 visitors in 2011. It employs 65 persons.

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