Les têtes pe(n)santes - exposition

Why are thinkers, scholars, intellectuals, and readers depicted sitting, looking absorbed, waiting for inspiration, with their heads resting on their hands? How did this motif of the pensive head become so ingrained in our imagination that it now illustrates most intellectual activities, whether reflection, meditation, introspection, or inspiration?

Punctuated by a series of images and organized into short thematic chapters, this exhibition attempts to identify the emergence of this attitude, sketching its initial contours through the figures of ancient philosophers, poets, and early Christian meditators. What follows is a journey that takes us from children to learned women, moving by leaps and bounds, by progression, or by simultaneity, from melancholic scholars to dreamy scientists, before turning to portraits of exhausted scientists at the end of the 19th century.

This attitude has been repeated many times and has circulated widely in academic circles and beyond, before becoming a commonplace, sometimes stripped of its symbolic complexity, but still used to represent study, learning, and knowledge.

An original exhibition designed by Jean-François Bert (professor at the Institute of History and Anthropology of Religions, UNIL) and Jérôme Lamy (researcher at the European Center for Sociology and Political Science, CNRS, Paris).

Opening: Tuesday, 14 October, 2025, at 6 p.m.

Guided tour: Thursday, 30 October, 2025 - 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Presentation of the publication Les têtes pensantes ou la pose des savoirs, Paris, Anamosa, 2025
=> Upon registration (free sandwiches)

Exhibition open until January 25, 2026
Free admission
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Exhibition design: Chloé Pannatier, Lausanne
Printing and setting: Espacemontage, Echandens
Partners:

• Fondation pour l’Université de Lausanne, FUNIL
• Institut d’histoire et anthropologie des religions, IHAR, Université de Lausanne
• Faculté de théologie et de sciences des religions, FTSR, Université de Lausanne
• Centre interdisciplinaire en histoire et sciences des religions, CIHSR, Université de Lausanne
• Laboratoire d’histoire des sciences et des techniques (LHST), EPFL