The Oopsatoreum

Andrew Frost

The collections of museums have long been things of wonder and the experience of visiting one, especially a museum that holds often obscure and mysterious items, is a matter of discovering what things are, where they came from and what they do. Such a treasure trove also presents the opportunity to imagine alternative histories for objects, real and imagined. Celebrated Australian graphic novelist Shaun Tan, in collaboration with members of the Sydney Children’s Choir, have created The Oopsatoreum, a fanciful concoction of a show that mixes fiction and reality in equal measure.

Selections from the Powerhouse Museum [real] collection are displayed alongside stories filling in their [made up] histories and their connection to Henry Archibald Mintox, a [fictional] inventor and showman who produced prototypes of laptop messenger devices long before the technology existed to make them real, and personal items including “…the 1927 Austin Tourer that Mintox planned to drive to Tasmania and the fat suit he wore to impress his audience at a lecture in the midst of the Great Depression.” Blurring the line between the fake and the real, and inviting visitors to contribute their own stories to the mix, The Oopsatoreum is a museum show for a fictional present.

Until June 1

Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/oopsatoreum

Pic: The Oopsatoreum, Laptop Messenger.