Since the beginning of June, the Gardoise by birth has taken charge of the municipal structure.
She has always followed the Louis-Médard museum via social networks. It was therefore not as a novice that Valérie Dumoulin arrived in the cultural structure of Lunel.
First for a job interview with the aim of obtaining the position of director of the building dedicated to written heritage. Then behind the “chief” office after brilliantly winning the votes of the jury composed, among others, of the municipal assistant for culture Corinne Poleri and the general director of city services Vincent Lamic.
Professional team and family spirit
Since June 3, the one who grew up between Gard and Lozère, between Alès and Le Pont-de-Montvert, has taken possession of her new jobs and landmarks, “alongside a very professional team which has a real “family” spirit and great complicity at work”rejoices Valérie Dumoulin after six months of work in this Médard museum “warm and on a human scale”.
This is also what has attracted this purebred Cévennes for generations. “I appreciate the public, the contact with people. I also like to transmit. And the Médard museum allows this on a scale that is as interesting as it is accessible.” She knows this all the better because Valérie Dumoulin is far from being at her first museum.
A first contract in Aigues-Mortes
After obtaining an A3 baccalaureate, the student joined the Paul-Valéry faculty in Montpellier and crammed for a double section: one in visual arts; the other in art history. To keep only the last option and specialize in military medieval architecture.
With a master's degree in art history and archeology in hand, Valérie Dumoulin landed a first contract in Aigues-Mortes under the cover of the national fund for historical monuments and sites. She is just 23 years old, with parallel hobbies and a cultural horizon that opens up as much as the stones enclose the “City of Ramparts”.
Develop public services
Two years later, in 1996, the Gard department offered him the opportunity to develop public services in a network of five structures: the Albert-André and Léon-Alègre museums in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, the Pierre- de-Luxembourg in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, that of Paul-Raymond in Pont-Saint-Esprit, as well as the House of Knights, in the same city, which awakened him to the world of heraldry for which she is still passionate today.
“I am even a member of the French society of heraldry and sigillography (study of seals, Editor’s note)“admits half-heartedly, in all modesty, the new director of Médard. During these years, the employee of the Gard Department will implement her first actions, activities and programs to promote all of the collections to different visitors.
Find your region of origin
When the call from Toulouse, for family reasons, resonated in 2003, Valérie Dumoulin had already passed her competition for senior conservation assistant. The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) then entrusted him with three museums: Saut du Tarn in Saint-Juéry and Paul-Dupuy and Georges-Labit in the pink city.
This was without counting, just six months later, on the opening of the new and imposing José-Cabanis media library in the city of violets and pastels. One interview will be enough for Valérie Dumoulin to settle into the brand new chair of programming and communications assistant.
Heritage conservation officer at Les Jacobins
Everything is to be done in the immense building which overlooks the Canal du Midi. “I organized literary meetings, set up exhibitions for which I was sometimes a curator, designed programs with editorial staff. Without forgetting the partnership part, guests…”
A mission, a challenge even, taking on all levels. But the Toulouse employee longs to no longer work on the heritage. A gap that it fills by integrating the study and heritage library, still in Toulouse, which houses no less than 150,000 books.
Medieval manuscripts, incunabula, printed matter, artists' books are her daily partners that she promotes to a public she has finally found. Nine years of an adventure of which she is closing the page to become responsible for the public center – always them! – at the Jacobins convent and its famous cloister in the heart of the capital of Occitanie.
“400,000 visitors per year!”states the one who is then promoted to heritage conservation officer. A whirlwind of numbers and letters from which Valérie Dumoulin wishes to escape after a few years.
A more than successful “mutation”
The announcement for the Louis-Médard museum last spring allows it to achieve this “mutation”, in several senses of the term. “When I saw the call for tenders go out, I didn't hesitate for a second. On the one hand, I found the written heritage which is so dear to me and, on the other hand, my region of origin.” The winning combo for the woman who will replace Claudio Galleri in the municipal enclosure and who arrives in the middle of setting up the exhibition on Jean Hugo.
A pictorial break of a few months, which will be extended in view of the success encountered and the number of visitors who have already admired it. “Proof, if it were still necessary, that a museum can be both a cultural and economic player in a city”claims Valérie Dumoulin. In Lunel, she obviously found the ideal scene to express this idea.
