If asked what humanity has achieved over the years, most people would point out magnificent cathedrals, great works of art, medical breakthroughs, moon landings or engineering marvels. Of course, these feats all deserve recognition but I think that history has overlooked some really important facts.
I have a confession to make. Museums usually bore me! I know this is not something I should share as it makes me appear empty headed, but there, I’ve said it! I cannot understand how people can spend hours gazing in awe at pottery fragments, ceremonial weapons or the remains of some poor soul who died around the invention of the wheel.
I have visited a lot of museums. My husband finds them fascinating. For me, they have become boring. There are only so many rusty swords, faded paintings, bits of broken jewellery or prehistoric bones that I can admire! I start going from exhibition to exhibition, nodding thoughtfully before secretly wandering if the cafe sells gluten free cakes. There is only a finite amount of time that I can pretend to admire an earthenware vessel circa 400BC.
At my last visit to a museum in Lima a couple of months ago, it struck me that, perhaps museums should expand their collections. Why only preserve antiquated artefacts from kings, emperors and brave warriors when we have fascinating objects that people live with every day. That’s where I came up with the idea of a ‘Museum of Ordinary Things’!
The first exhibit might contain remote controls. There would be hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes, held together with sticky tape, missing battery covers, or even just fragments circa the 1970s. Visitors would be invited to an interactive section where they would be presented with a television and a comfortable sofa. The challenge would be simple: find the remote. Visitors could spend hours trapped in a cycle of hope and despair. They might find lost coins, reading glasses and even dust to knit a small jumper. Very few would find the remote, a humbling reminder of humanity’s limitations!
The next exhibit could hold the ‘National Collection of Plastic Bags’. This is where plastic bags are carefully stored within other plastic bags. Scientists believe this nesting arrangement dates back many generations and remains a sacred tradition in British households. Nobody knows why they keep them but they dare not throw them away!
A particularly popular exhibit would be the ‘Drawer of Mystery’. Inside would be old batteries of an uncertain vintage, keys that fit no known lock, instruction manuals for appliances long since deceased, a screw that once belonged to something very important and many other exciting artefacts dating back to the late 1800s. It could, once more, be interactive where children could try and find keys to fit padlocks. Men could gleefully recognise miscellaneous tools and read through riveting instruction manuals recognising appliances popular before they were even born.
Women would move hastily on to the ‘Hall of Missing Socks’. This poignant exhibition could highlight poor, bereaved twins of a vanished sibling, condemned to spend eternity torn apart by fate, the solitary survivor, haunted by the empty space beside it. They would be carefully laid out in a drawer, on top and underneath a bed and on the floor. Comments by leading scientists would have studied this bizarre phenomenon for many years. Current theories would include wormholes or alien abduction. Washing machines and tumble driers would share some of the blame but remain innocent until proven guilty. This exhibition would be a tragic reminder that even the closest of twins could be cruelly separated, never to share another spin cycle together again. Like all devoted twins they would have hoped to grow old together, their partnership ending only when time wore them both thin, not by a cruel disappearance in their prime!
The list is endless. You could have the ‘National Archive of Takeaway Menus’, The Tupperware Lid Collection’, The Drawer of Greeting Cards’ and ‘The Shelf of Decorative Candles’. Another interactive exhibit could be ‘The Museum Cafe Queue Experience’.
The most emotional exhibition, which would come with a warning, could be called the ‘Mobile Phone Graveyard’. Held securely within glass cabinets, dozens of these ancient mobiles were once considered cutting edge technology. There would be a notice for those under thirty not to mistake them for archeological finds. The notice would also urge visitors not to laugh at these exhibits as their owners once believed that they proudly owned the very pinnacle of human achievement! These devices were designed in a time when phones were made for calls, texts were changed by the character and nobody expected it to communicate with a refrigerator or take a photograph. Particular notice should be taken of the Nokia phone, a device so indestructible that scientists of the time believed that it would outlive several civilisations and even the earth itself.
The penultimate room would house the British ‘Just in Case’ collection. This would consist of pieces of string, buttons, rubber bands, drawing pins, paper clips, reading glasses, chargers, etc. Visitors would be asked to allow extra time for this exhibit as most will be so excited to discover that they definitely had ‘one of those’!
This would bring us to the museum’s most valuable treasure, displayed under bullet proof glass and illuminated by a single spotlight, ‘The Indestructible Ballpoint Pen’. It could be found in a kitchen drawer circa 1980. It would apparently have survived house moves, office clear outs and at least three changes of governments. It would have been dropped, chewed and accidentally sat upon. It could even have survived the washing machine experience, yet it could still write with unwavering confidence. Experts who examined the pen would be dumbfounded that the ink hadn’t run out and would be convinced that, should the last computer give up, that tiny plastic monument to the remarkable durability of ordinary things, would faithfully continue filling out forms and signing important documents. It would be a survivor. A true legend. Few of us have owned a bronze helmet but we’ve all owned a good ballpoint pen!
Most museums preserve history. There is a place for them and I understand why they would be appreciated by a large section of our society. However, the ‘Museum of Ordinary Things’ with its humble exhibits, preserves memories. While kings, battles and empires have shaped the world, it’s the everyday objects of ordinary lives that continue to shape ours.
Jenny Burrell 