Olympic

Olympic Museum launches Chasing Time exhibit

The Olympic Museum in Switzerland yesterday launched a new eight month exhibit designed to explore the concept of time.

Chasing Time, which runs at the spectacular museum in the Olympic capital of Lausanne, has been curated by UK Open University sociology professor Kath Woodward.

As well as exploring the technical process of sports timekeeping with the assistance of Official Olympic Timekeeper, Omega; the exhibition explores the concept of time and how the historical development of horology and more precise timekeeper methods has altered our perception of the flow of our lives.

The exhibition moves from Cyclical Time, when our only notion of timekeeping revolved around the passing of days and seasons, to Linear Time, with the advent of early clocks and the chronographs and on to The Time Laboratory; a period when precise measurement of time was made possible.

Exhibits include Nicolas Rieussec’s first chronograph, the Omega stopwatch used to time Roger Bannister’s sub-four minute mile and legendary Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi’s stopwatch.

A programme of live events has been scheduled including A Meeting With… philosopher Raphael Enthoven, three concerts and three performances of Stephane Verrue’s play Tempus Tic Tac. Omega Timing veteran Peter Huerzeler, who has attended 17 Olympic Games, will also be leading a series of time workshops.

Woodward was selected to curate the exhibition on the strength of her 2012 book Sporting Times, which she wrote during the London Olympic Games.

Chasing Time runs at Le Musee Olympique in Lausanne, Switzerland, until January 18 2015.

James Buttery

Editor of WatchPro, the WatchPro Hot 100 and The Luxury Report.

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