Cute Dogs! Tiny Museum!
Every day, hundreds of millions of people with wonderful stories walk by cultural sites all over the world. Few of them ever enter, and fewer still have an emotional experience when they do. The moment a museum dares to look outside and engage the passers-by in a conversation about something they care about, as Museum Perron Oost (and Museum Rotterdam, and so many others) has done with Buoyant barking, the relationships that develop are priceless.
Okay, I apologise for the slightly clickbait-esque title to this post, but certain things in this world get me excited. Quirky museums and adorable pooches are two of them.
This blog post tells the story of the Museum Perron Oost, Amsterdam, which proclaims to be the ‘smallest museum in the world’. An old rescued railway platform, the institution has only 6 square metres of gallery space, and is constantly thinking up new ways to engage the local community, many of whom regularly walk directly past the site.
Their latest initiative saw dog walkers invited to take a picture of their four-legged friends and share stories of the neighbourhood through their eyes. The exhibition was constantly expanding and altering, encouraging walkers to make repeat visits to the site to engage with the new stories.
I love this – and not just for the cute dogs. It’s a shining example of ingenuity and enterprise from a cultural institution: it fosters engagement with members of the community who wouldn’t normally visit museums, it brings a community together in new and wholesome ways, and it proves the size of a museum doesn’t necessarily have to put limits on its outreach.
Oh, and did I mention the cute dogs?
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