The first permanent exhibition dedicated to this inescapable part of human and animal existence was opened in 2016 on the Isle of Wight, located off the south coast of England. It is called the National Poo Museum (in Spanish, ‘the national poop museum’) and exhibits all kinds of feces: from those of a human baby to those of a lion, a dove, a fox –image on these lines–, a meerkat, a moose … And it even shows fossilized reptile poop with millions of years. All of them are stored encapsulated in resin spheres.
The museum is located in the island’s zoo, and at the time of its inauguration, instead of the usual decorative red ribbon, they cut a roll of toilet paper. Very appropriate. Naturally, within the enclosure, there is no lack of a souvenir shop , where you can buy plastic replicas of different types of poop and also other eschatological objects.
The presentation text on the museum’s website very well synthesizes its philosophy, evoking how important poop is, how it delights the little ones in the house and how rejection and silence about it are learned when they are older .
Remember, also, that recent research has shown how important all those intestinal bacteria that daily go down the pipes and sewers of our towns and cities can be for medical advances. Issues like this – the text continues – are what the museum wants to explore, as well as “examine our relationship with poop and forever change our way of thinking about this amazing substance.”
In Italy there is the Museo da Merda
But this is not the only museum in the world that features animal defecations. In 2015, the Museu da Merda (‘museum of shit’) opened its doors in the medieval Italian castle of Castelbosco, located about 100 kilometers from Milan.
After its opening there is an agricultural entrepreneur named Gianantonio Locatelli, who wanted to give some kind of ecological, productive and cultural use to the excrement generated by his 3,500 milk-producing cows used to make Grada Padano cheese, which generate tons of manure per year . Among the many applications it has found, is that of converting these feces into biogas, which is used to generate energy – including that required by the heating system of its facilities. It also uses them to produce fertilizer.
And he also gives these residues a somewhat more eccentric use: he has created a museum that exhibits photographs, paintings and also illustrations inspired by this eschatological theme or even made with paintings made with excrement , as in the case of the works of Roberto Coda Zabetta. , who used a mixture of manure, pigments and resins to carry out his works.
Likewise, the museum highlights other benefits of manure: such as that throughout history it has been used medicinally (in combination with plants) or even as a construction material .
Image: National Poo Museum
