Looking for something different to fill a rainy November afternoon? Look no further than the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art and Natural History, an intriguing venture recently opened in Hackney.
The museum, intended as “an attack on the Ikea society and cleanliness, modernity and tidiness,” holds an exquisitely cluttered collection of intriguing artefacts and oddities. From dodo bones and mad-woman’s doodles to two-headed kittens, 8-legged lambs and tribal shrunken heads, at every corner of this vaguely ordered chaos expect the unexpected. Not making any attempt to categorize its contents the museum is quite simply a disordered display of “everything that has glittered & caught the eye of it’s founder”, whether it be piles of old toys from Happy Meals, kama sutra collectibles or living coral aquariums.
Rejecting contemporary museum’s tendency to hide 90% of a collection, over-categorize items and focus on education over aesthetic, Victor Wynd’s museum “hopes to fill the vacuum between what the establishment elite believes is worthy of worship & what exists in the world.”
Alongside the permanent collection there will be two guest exhibitions a year, the first featuring the English Surrealists, and a range of lectures aimed to titillate the intellect and promote lively debate. The attached café serves sandwiches and light bites by day and devilishly good cocktails by night. The sumptuous velvety Lion Room is also available for private hire for those in search of a quirky venue for feasting and other festivities.
So go ahead, don’t be scared. Enter the curious world of Vktor Wynd and explore his rare and priceless marvels from the depths of a Hackney basement.
11 Mare Street, Hackney, E84RP
Entrance fee £3