Part of being passionate about museums is embracing all weird, unique, and sometimes awkward moments exhibited inside museums and historical places (whether they're intentional or not). From large to small organizations you can encounter creepy or uncanny situations that many museums sometimes display. Even some contemporary artists have contributed and examined the disturbing irony of mannequins (two examples below), and how museum displays can sometimes be off-putting. I love discovering these moments, because part of educational experiences that become memorable can happen when things are unplanned.
My first example is a historical house in Alexandria, VA, which I visited in grad school and confronted a very uncomfortable introductory visitor's video with a mannequin watching me, all by myself, from a dark corner.
The Field Museum portrays a Native American rite of passage ritual, while floating hands pull on some hemp:
Examples from a museum in the Mid-West:
A tortured 'witch' from the National Museum of Sweden:
At a military museum in Stockholm, Sweden the sitting mannequin portrayed an upper-class aristocratic with syphilis:
Contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare:
Contemporary artist Paul McCarthy:
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