Top 5 Museums dedicated to unusual things
Visiting museums is a way of both expanding your outlook and entertaining yourself. In the last decades, museums have transformed from boring institutions into exciting spaces full of unusual things. Traditional exhibitions have been replaced by areas where one can manipulate objects, make experiments, and participate in creating something new. Today, you can get insights on various subjects you have never thought about as something interesting. Or you can see how ordinary things are presented in a new way. Modern museums are the places where the most brilliant ideas and limitless creativity are implemented in exhibited elements.
Plastinarium
Plastination means a process in which human tissues are preserved with the help of polymers. Gunther von Hagens perfected this technique after studying medicine, dissection, and chemistry for about 39 years. At a plastination institute run by Gunther Von Hagens, you can see preserved human bodies in creative positions that demonstrate the intricacies of the human form.
Those who visit the Plastinarium in Guben, Germany, have a chance to learn more about anatomy from human bodies and animals. Moreover, they can witness the graphic process of plastination itself. Famous and extraordinary Body World exhibitions still remain the subject of ethical debates on body procurement. Many people keep arguing about the handling of human remains post-mortem.
Cancun Underwater Museum
Cancun Underwater Sculpture Museum is based in Mexico and was created as a result of a collaboration between biologists and artist Jason deCaires Taylor. This non-profit organization was set up in the azure waters Cancun, Isla Mujeres, and Punta Nizuc in 2009. The museum fosters diverse marine life and features more than 500 life-size sculptures, most of which are created by the British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor.
Manchones Reef, the largest and most coral reef in Cancún, received much damage from divers and snorkelers. This environmental issue requires a prompt solution, and it has become an acute social problem. Different public organizations, including museums, schools, and galleries, make much effort to increase people’s awareness of it. Some of them offer free essays for students on current social issues, while others share important statistics that allow us to read more about our impact on the environment. Cancun Underwater Sculpture Museum decided to address this issue through an amazing visual representation of our interaction with the environment. So the main museum’s objective is to save the nearby coral reefs damaged by tourists and divers by providing them an alternative destination.
Museum Of Broken Relationships
The Museum of Broken Relationships began as a traveling collection, and after some time it transformed into a permanent museum in Zagreb, Croatia. Since 2010, it has been exploring broken love and other aspects of human relationships. While visiting a museum, you can learn what relationships mean to different people and how one can grow from them.
The museum’s exhibition is made up of objects donated anonymously by people from all over the world. Each of them has its own story and reflects different human emotions. Although some things can make you sad, most of them give hope and remind us that we can recover. No matter what kind of relationship ends, we can learn from it and move on. The experience we all have is universal, so no one is alone in this.
The Museum keeps accepting personal objects left over from former lovers as donations. One can share something and tell their story of it anonymously, so it will be added to the object’s description.
Sulabh International Museum of Toilets
The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets is based in New Delhi, the capital of India. It offers a rare collection of objects detailing the historic evolution of hygiene and sanitation from 2500 BC to the present day. You can find expositions related to technology, social customs, etiquettes, sanitary conditions, and legislative efforts of different times there. Can you imagine that there is even a collection of poems related to toilets and their usage?
The pictures demonstrating how the world looked like when there were no water closets can help you realize the incredible changes brought about by their invention. You will probably be surprised by Roman toilet pots made of gold and silver and a replica of a medieval mobile commode in the shape of a treasure chest. While visiting the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, you can also learn many anecdotes and interesting facts associated with the development of toilets.
Torture Museum
The Torture Museum is located in the heart of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, just near the flower market overlooking the Singel canal. This small museum is included in the list of the most unusual museums in the world. It is extremely popular among tourists because of its extensive range of torture devices.
The Museum provides a vivid image of a horrible European past involving scaffolds on the market place and gallows fields at the gate. Its exhibition includes numerous punishment instruments, from the inquisition chair to the guillotine. All of them have engravings or descriptions with historical background information in eight languages.
The Torture Museum is often visited for educational purposes by schools or other groups that request a guided tour. There is even a thought-provoking learning package for secondary schools about torture and the death penalty in today’s world. This museum is definitely worth finding time and money for visiting, especially if you are a student.
Author’s BIO
Judy Nelson is an academic writer and a former professor of History. Currently, she writes essays, research papers, and assignments for students who experience study difficulties. Judy is a big fan of museums and art galleries, so she always has something interesting to tell her students.
Discover more from Unusual Places
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.