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Museums are sharing their creepiest exhibits on Twitter to help pass the quarantine

After its closure to the public due to the current outbreak, the Yorkshire Museum in York has launched a marvelous social media challenge. Its curators have challenged museums and visitors to share the creepiest exhibits in the world under the weekly hashtag #curatorbattle. Museums from Germany, France, Canada, and the USA responded and a zombie […]

Alexandru Micu
April 22, 2020 @ 7:14 pm

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After its closure to the public due to the current outbreak, the Yorkshire Museum in York has launched a marvelous social media challenge. Its curators have challenged museums and visitors to share the creepiest exhibits in the world under the weekly hashtag #curatorbattle.

Museums from Germany, France, Canada, and the USA responded and a zombie blowfish, a terrifying taxidermic mermaid, and creepy necklaces have so far been proposed. The Yorkshire Museum started the informal competition with a hair bun off a Roman woman from the 3rd or 4th century AD, with hair clips still in place. Here it is, alongside the tweet that started it all:

The first to respond to the call were the German History Museum and Norwich Castle, a museum, art gallery, and study centre. The first presented a plague mask — very fitting for the current times — while the latter a “pincushion! Complete with tiny children’s heads”.

The National Museums of Scotland presented a “mermaid”, presumably to ensure that everyone will be having nightmares for a time. It looks like the misguided work of a taxidermist, but I’m not sure — and I don’t really want to know, either. You’ll be delighted/terrified to hear that they have more than one such exhibit, noting that “many museums have one”.

Of course, how would any creepy contest be complete without a cursed toy? Luckily, Canada’s Prince Edward Island Museum swept in to save the day.

But toys aren’t the only thing people seem willing to creepify. What if you, for example, wanted to wear pants while also not technically wearing pants but in a very creepy and disturbing way? Maybe even ones that might even make you rich overnight? The Icelandic Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft has just the thing for you — the Necropants (replica).

On the other side of the fence, if inviting magic is the exact opposite of what you want, then you might need to pop around Oxford, visit the Pitt Rivers Museum, and don their “sheep’s heart stuck with pins and nails, to be worn like a necklace for breaking evil spells”.

I wonder what happens if you wear both at the same time.

Among the more exotic entries I’ve seen is this — a whale’s eardrum, painted to look like a (misshapen) human face, currently in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.

There’s also this mask at Abingdon County Hall Museum, which brings a much subtler sense of uneasiness and haunting to this whole challenge.

Finally, as promised, there’s also this zombified blowfish at the Bexhill Museum

Maybe the quarantine does keep us safe… from whatever is lurking in the shadows of museum collections around the world!

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