THE PANTHEON

On a hill in the midst of the Sorbonne there stands the Panthéon where a grateful French nation lays to rest some of its illustrious men like Rousseau, Hugo and Braille (only one woman, who is not even French). It is an interesting, yet crumbling, building which used to be a church dedicated to St Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. The white, suspended, things you can see amongst Foucault’s pendulum are part of an exhibition which attempts to contrast the starkness and coldness of the Panthéon (and the ‘gods’ contained within its walls) with the tangible ‘life and animality’ of the Leviathan god represented. Personally, I prefer the Panthéon in all its full emptiness.