Shit Museum

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Shit Museum
Museo Della Merda
Shit Museum
Established5 May 2015 (2015-05-05)
Location Castelbosco  [ it ], Piacenza, Italy
Coordinates 45°0′0″N9°33′0″E / 45.00000°N 9.55000°E / 45.00000; 9.55000
ArchitectLuca Cipelletti
Website http://www.theshitmuseum.org/

The Shit Museum (Italian : Museo Della Merda) is a museum in the province of Piacenza, in the north of Italy, and is reported to be the world's first museum dedicated to feces. [1] [upper-alpha 1] The museum opened on 5 May 2015, [3] having been founded by agricultural businessman Gianantonio Locatelli and three associates. [4]

Contents

History

The museum, set in a medieval castle in the village of Castelbosco, was created by a local dairy farmer whose herd of 2,500 (some reports say 3,500) cows produce 30,000 litres (7,900 US gal) of milk a day, which is used to make Grana Padano cheese. The cows also produce around 100,000 kilograms (220,000 lb) of dung, which is transformed into methane, fertiliser for the fields, as well as raw material for plaster and bricks. [4] [5] The dung is used to generate power to run the operation. The museum has a symbiotic relationship with the farm and cheesemaking facility. It is an eccentric byproduct of the huge aggregation of cows and their prodigious output of cow manure. [5]

Eco-friendly recycling is an important theme of the museum. That includes the reuse of farmyard manure, but the museum also features many artefacts on display, including a lump of fossilised dinosaur faeces, jars of faeces, art works inspired by human waste, [upper-alpha 2] ancient Roman medicinal cures that featured animal excrement, and a collection of dung beetles. [1] [5]

An even broader motif (and goal) is "transformation" in an engineering, philosophical, scatological, sociological, and practical sense. As the organization's website offers: "The idea for a new museum slowly took shape, emerging from manure to deal with the broader theme of transformation. The museum would be an agent of change which, through educational and research activities, the production of objects of everyday use and the gathering of artefacts and stories concerning excrement in the modern world and throughout history, was to dismantle cultural norms and prejudices." [4]

Transforming the site took more than twenty years. It started with paint. The museum commissioned artists David Tremlett and Anne and Patrick Poirier to transfigure the mechanical digesters "into a sign" mixing allegorical symbols with botany, thereby creating "a work of evolutionary land art". [4] [6] Luca Cipelletti was the principal architect. [1]

Within the Gazzola Castelbosco, exhibit spaces are designed to reinforce the themes, beginning with the museum's repeated use of the dung beetle the Egyptian's considered the scarab to be divine as a symbol of the heavenly cycle and of the idea of rebirth or regeneration and to provide proof that shit "is a useful and living material". Thus, it combines historical references (including Pliny's Naturalis Historia ) to point out that waste and recycled materials can be the basis for a better civilization. [4]

Part of the mission of the Shit Museum is to make tangible contributions: ideas and exhibits are purposed to lead to objects, innovation and projects. Production is key to the transformation the museum's creators envision. In its inaugural year, the museum invented and patented Merdacotta, which it says is "emblematic". The product's name is 'baked shit' in Italian. [7] The material combines the twin principles of sustainability and transmutation, which are the museum's baseline. It combines the twin materials of dried cow dung and Tuscan clay. [8] The Merdacotta was used in "simple, clean rural shapes", devoid of adornment and embodying "ancient principles", thereby making the first tangible products bearing the Museo della Merda brand. These objects include bowls, flowerpots, jugs, mugs, plates, and tiles. In that sense, the use of materials gives voice to a Mcluhanesque view where "the medium is truly the message". By their existence, the materials used eloquently imply that the material is their substance, and that shape is peripheral. "These are objects that redesign the cycle of nature in a virtuous circle, constituting essential elements of contemporary living." [4] At the Salone del Mobile in 2016, the museum's "primordial products" made their debut. They garnered first prize in the Milano Design Award. [4] [9] [10] [upper-alpha 3] Merdacotta is said to have a rugged look that enhances the hand crafting. When glazed and fired at 1,800 degrees,[ clarification needed ] it can be used to serve food and drink. [8]

Other museums

Sulabh International Museum of Toilets in Delhi, which antedates this museum, opening in 1992.

The National Poo Museum, which is ensconced within the Isle of Wight Zoo, features 20 examples of animal faeces, prepared by the Ecclestone George collective of artists and social entrepreneurs: Daniel Roberts, Nigel George, and Dave Badman. [11] The specimens are desiccated and preserved in plexiglas. [12] "The museum will feature relics such as freeze-dried poo, poop hanging from the ceiling and poop from various different species such as meerkats, foxes, cows, owls and even human babies." [13] Poop is dried on a specially built machine. [11] [14] Viewers can illuminate each preserved exhibit at the touch of a button. [12] It is said that this is "more of an exhibit" than a museum. [12] The "exhibit" is scheduled to go on tour throughout the United Kingdom after its initial run in the spring and summer of 2016 at the Isle of Wight. [11] [13]

Another museum, called "Mr. Toilet House" or "a house to relieve one’s concerns" in Korean, a term for restrooms used in temples, is located in Suwon-si, South Korea. It was built in 2007 as a large house designed to mimic a very large commode. [14] [15] [16]

There is a Japanese Unko Museum within the Himeji Museum of Literature. Among other exhibits, this being a library, it included "Excretory Literature", books on turds and related subjects. [2]

The Pooseum is in Tasmania. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coprophagia</span> Consumption of feces

Coprophagia or coprophagy is the consumption of feces. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek κόπρος kópros "feces" and φαγεῖν phageîn "to eat". Coprophagy refers to many kinds of feces-eating, including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), of other individuals (allocoprophagy), or one's own (autocoprophagy) – those once deposited or taken directly from the anus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toilet humour</span> Type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, urination and flatulence

Toilet humour, or potty or scatological humour, is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, diarrhea, constipation, urination and flatulence, and to a lesser extent vomiting and other bodily functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New materials in 20th-century art</span>

New materials in 20th-century art were introduced to art making from the very beginning of the century. The introduction of new materials and heretofore non-art materials helped drive change in art during the 20th century. Traditional materials and techniques were not necessarily displaced in the 20th century. Rather, they functioned alongside innovations that came with the 20th century. Such mainstays as oil-on-canvas painting, and sculpting in traditional materials continued right through the 20th century into the 21st century. Furthermore, even "traditional" materials were greatly expanded in the course of the 20th century. The number of pigments available to artists has increased both in quantity and quality, by most reckoning. New formulations for traditional materials especially the commercial availability of acrylic paint have become widely used, introducing initial issues over their stability and longevity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piero Manzoni</span> Italian avant-garde artist

Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, better known as Piero Manzoni was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced, the work of a generation of younger Italian artists brought together by the critic Germano Celant in the first Arte Povera exhibition held in Genoa, 1967. Manzoni is most famous for a series of artworks that call into question the nature of the art object, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art. His work eschews normal artist's materials, instead using everything from rabbit fur to human excrement in order to "tap mythological sources and to realize authentic and universal values".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cow dung</span> Waste product from a cows (or cattle in general) butt

Cow dung, also known as cow pats, cow pies, cow poop or cow manure, is the waste product (faeces) of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle ("cows"), bison ("buffalo"), yak, and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue of plant matter which has passed through the animal's gut. The resultant faecal matter is rich in minerals. Color ranges from greenish to blackish, often darkening soon after exposure to air.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treebog</span> Type of toilet

A treebog is a type of low-tech compost toilet. It consists of a raised platform above a compost pile surrounded by densely planted willow trees or other nutrient-hungry vegetation. It can be considered an example of permaculture design, as it functions as a system for converting urine and feces to biomass, without the need to handle excreta.

<i>Artists Shit</i> 1961 artwork by Piero Manzoni consisting of 90 cans filled with his faeces

Artist's Shit is a 1961 anti-artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, each reportedly filled with 30 grams (1.1 oz) of faeces, and measuring 4.8 by 6.5 centimetres, with a label in Italian, English, French, and German stating:

Artist's Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shock art</span> Form of contemporary art

Shock art is contemporary art that incorporates disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience. It is a way to disturb "smug, complacent and hypocritical" people. While the art form's proponents argue that it is "imbedded with social commentary" and critics dismiss it as "cultural pollution", it is an increasingly marketable art, described by one art critic in 2001 as "the safest kind of art that an artist can go into the business of making today". But while shock art may attract curators and make headlines, Reason magazine's 2007 review of The Art Newspaper suggested that traditional art shows continue to have more popular appeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human feces</span> Metabolic waste of the human digestive system

Human feces are the solid or semisolid remains of food that could not be digested or absorbed in the small intestine of humans, but has been further broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. It also contains bacteria and a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and the dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut. It is discharged through the anus during a process called defecation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feces</span> Solid or semisolid remains of undigested food

Feces are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin, and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicken manure</span> Feces of chickens used as an organic fertilizer, especially for soil low in nitrogen

Chicken manure is the feces of chickens used as an organic fertilizer, especially for soil low in nitrogen. Of all animal manures, it has the highest amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Chicken manure is sometimes pelletized for use as a fertilizer, and this product may have additional phosphorus, potassium or nitrogen added. Optimal storage conditions for chicken manure include keeping it in a covered area and retaining its liquid, because a significant amount of nitrogen exists in the urine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pail closet</span> Room used to dispose of human excreta

A pail closet or pail privy or dirt closet was a room used for the disposal of human excreta, under the "pail system" of waste removal. The "closet" was a small outhouse (privy) which contained a seat, underneath which a portable receptacle was placed. This bucket (pail), into which the user would defecate, was removed and emptied by the local authority on a regular basis. The contents, known euphemistically as night soil, would either be incinerated or composted into fertiliser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manure</span> Organic matter, mostly derived from animal feces, which can be used as fertilizer

Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are utilised by bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shit stick</span> Instrument used for the cleansing of the anus and perineum post-defecation

Shit stick means "a thin stake or stick used instead of toilet paper" for anal hygiene and was a historical item of material culture introduced through Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism. A well-known example is gānshǐjué/kanshiketsuwato from the Chan/Zen gōng'àn/kōan in which a monk asked "What is buddha?" and Master Yunmen/Unmon answered "A dry shit stick".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poop emoji</span> Emoji representing a pile of feces

Pile of Poo (💩), also known informally as the poomoji (slang), poop emoji, or poo emoji, is an emoji resembling a coiled pile of feces, usually adorned with cartoon eyes and a large smile. Originated from Japan, it is used as an expression of various contexts. Some possible uses include: as a response of passive aggressive emotion, for comedic value, as commentary on what's bad, or as its literal meaning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dry dung fuel</span> Animal feces that has been dried in order to be used as a fuel source

Dry dung fuel is animal feces that has been dried in order to be used as a fuel source. It is used in many countries. Using dry manure as a fuel source is an example of reuse of excreta. A disadvantage of using this kind of fuel is increased air pollution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reuse of human excreta</span> Safe, beneficial use of human excreta mainly in agriculture (after treatment)

Reuse of human excreta is the safe, beneficial use of treated human excreta after applying suitable treatment steps and risk management approaches that are customized for the intended reuse application. Beneficial uses of the treated excreta may focus on using the plant-available nutrients that are contained in the treated excreta. They may also make use of the organic matter and energy contained in the excreta. To a lesser extent, reuse of the excreta's water content might also take place, although this is better known as water reclamation from municipal wastewater. The intended reuse applications for the nutrient content may include: soil conditioner or fertilizer in agriculture or horticultural activities. Other reuse applications, which focus more on the organic matter content of the excreta, include use as a fuel source or as an energy source in the form of biogas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omni processor</span> Group of physical, biological or chemical treatments to process fecal sludge

Omni processor is a term coined in 2012 by staff of the Water, Sanitation, Hygiene Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to describe a range of physical, biological or chemical treatments to remove pathogens from human-generated fecal sludge, while simultaneously creating commercially valuable byproducts. An omni processor mitigates unsafe methods in developing countries of capturing and treating human waste, which annually result in the spread of disease and the deaths of more than 1.5 million children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Poo Museum</span> Museum on the Isle of Wight

The National Poo Museum on the Isle of Wight, southern England, is a museum dedicated to the collection, conservation and display of faeces. The museum, which opened on 25 March 2016, originally as a mobile museum, is now permanently located at Sandown Barrack Battery.

<i>Cloaca</i> (art installation) Art installations by Wim Delvoye 2000-2010

Cloaca is a series of art installations by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. The installations are computerised machines that recreate the human digestive process. The machine takes in food which it moves through a series of pipes and containers where digestive processes are performed following which the machine excretes the digested material at a time advertised to gallery viewers. This digested material has both the look and smell of faeces. Each installation has its own name, logo and technical drawings.

References

Notes

  1. The "Japanese Poop Museum" within the Himeji Museum of Literature goes back to at least 2008. However, it is unclear whether this was an exhibit in a library or a true "museum". [2]
  2. "Other items made by Locatelli, in conjunction with architect Luca Cipelletti, are terracotta artifacts made from cow dung and clay, dubbed Merdacotta, which won a design award during Milan Design Week 2016. The pots, furniture, tableware and objets d'art are also featured in the museum, and are lighter and sturdier than industrially made terracotta items." [5]
  3. "Merdacotta is “a material which brings together the museum's principles of transformation and sustainability,” they write, to “turn shit into everyday objects and thoughts” and “essential elements of contemporary living.” [8]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 "Italy's museum of faeces smells 'fresh as a daisy'". The Telegraph . 29 April 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Japanese Poop Museum" (in Japanese). Babel Hut. May 9, 2008. Archived from the original on October 14, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  3. "Shit Museum Opens in Italy". Dangerous Minds . May 5, 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Shit Museum" . Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Anderson, John (August 31, 2016). "The Shit Museum offers a sustainable view on the science and art of dung". Gizmag . New Atlas. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  6. Cow Dung Goes High Style New York Times Style Magazine
  7. Piepenbring, Dan (May 11, 2016). "On the shelf: Shit Is Furniture, and Other News". The Paris Review . Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 Hohenadel, Kristin (April 13, 2016). "Can You Guess the Main Ingredient in the Building Material "Merdacotta"?". Slate . Slate.com. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  9. "The Shit Evolution by Luca Ciopelletti is the Winner of the Milano Design Award". Shit Museum. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  10. Flip (April 11, 2016). "The Shit Evolution in Milan presents dung as a "beautiful" material". Dezeen . Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 "National Poo Museum official website" . Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  12. 1 2 3 Shoe, Des (July 25, 2016). "Museum Showcases the 'Art' of Animal Excrement: What in the World". The New York Times . Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  13. 1 2 Gallucci, Nicole (March 18, 2016). "A National Poo Museum is opening in a British zoo". Mashable . Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  14. 1 2 Boroff, David (April 5, 2016). "National Poo Museum opens in Britain, complete with 'special poo drying machine'". New York Daily News . Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  15. "Haewoojae Museum (Mr. Toilet House) (해우재)" . Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  16. "Mr. Toilet House home page" (in Korean). Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  17. Pooseum