Creepy Museum Mannequins

DISCLAIMER: This blog entry contains mature and graphic photographic content. 

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:

 

 

The Catacombs

Below the streets of Paris are the famous catacombs - a series of tunnels known for their winding and twisting passages, dark cervices, and millions of remains of human bones. Stories such as The Phantom of the Opera or Les Misérables come to mind when venturing below ground and encountering the dark side of Paris. The particular catacombs that John and I went to has been a Parisian attraction since the late 1800's. Since Paris is such an ancient city, naturally space to bury people became very limited over time and so a large mass removal and replacement of bones from various cemeteries happened around the end of the 18th century. Approximately six million human remains are contained within the catacombs, mostly stacked by bone type and even configured into shapes like hearts and crosses. What some people find grotesque others can find life assuring. To dust we come and to dust we go as they say. Regardless of one's feeling of death (and life), the catacombs is a very unique place to directly interact and contemplate Paris's past and present.