Nearly five centuries since the longest journey around the world ended in 1522, Filipinos are going back in time as they are set to experience the world’s first circumnavigation led by well-known Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan; taking a glimpse of what transpired during the three-year voyage through a display of objects, artifacts, specimens, and high-quality facsimiles.
Starting this March 24, The Longest Journey: The First Journey Around the World exhibition will be opened to the public at the fourth floor galleries of the National Museum of Fine Arts, presented by the National Museum of the Philippines in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain.
Visitors will be seeing the Philippine adaptation of the exhibition originally curated by a team headed by Antonio Fernández Torres and organized by Acción Cultural Española and Spain’s Ministry of Culture and Sports.
Far more condensed than the original, the circumnavigation is presented in 14 sections with high-quality facsimiles of a selection of original archival documents; including the contract made between Carlos I and Magellan, the expenses for the fleet and its supplies, the crew list, the final orders given by the king before the expedition set sail, the treaties made in the Moluccas, the letter of Sebastian Elcano to Carlos I on the completion of the voyage, the last will and testament of Magellan, pages from the chronicle of Antonio de Pigafetta, the report of Ginés de Mafra, among others.
And to make the galleries more interesting, the Spanish curatorial team worked with the National Museum of the Philippines and the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines to present details that will not be found in any other version of The Longest Journey, whether in Spain or worldwide.
Moreover, from the collections of the National Museum and the Intramuros Administration, special archaeological, ethnographic, and devotional art objects evoke the sense of discovery and encounter that must have been experienced by Magellan and his crew through their time in the archipelago.
Meanwhile, dominating the main gallery is a model of Victoria, the only ship out of the original five to return back to Spain. Four screens also display audio-visual presentations from the original exhibition.
The introductory part covers the premise of the exhibition that regards the historic voyage as a “symbol of the exploratory nature of human beings throughout the ages, their attitude towards the unknown, their will to go further, over and over, constantly pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge”.
The exhibition, on the other hand, closes by pointing out that the longest journey was a feat that showed the full extent of our planet and the connectedness of the world’s oceans, and opened the way for a new global era.
