“Walk right in and clap if you believe in fairies.” This is not the jingle of a new Peter Pan — The Musical, but a sign on a door at the Story Museum. The most amazing thing is that when you walk in and clap your hands, something does happen.
The Story Museum is a registered charity active since 2003 which celebrates the power of literature, and most importantly, stories. The creed of the museum is that stories are not only for children, but for everyone. Stories can inspire, amaze, thrill, entertain, and instruct. And this is really the feeling you get from their current exhibition, ‘26 Characters’. The exhibition features twenty-six famous authors of children literature — including Michael Morpurgo, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett — dressed up as their favourite literary character and portrayed by photographer Cambridge Jones. For each of them, the museum has a room that displays the photograph and captures the character and the setting of the book; the visitors are (gently) thrown into a world of magic and stories. Part of the exhibition is also the Dressing-up Room. The room gives you the chance to decide which character from literature you would be, and to become him/her. Without being too much of a spoiler, I’ll just say that there is a Talking Throne involved as well. And if you think the whole thing sounds childish and not cool, I’ve seen teens having the time of their life in this room.
As one can detect, the Story Museum is like no other museum. Learning through stories is not done by looking at pictures or reading informative boards, as happens in other educational places. At the core of everything the Story Museum does is the idea of being a place in which people ‘experience’ things, not just ‘go and see’ them. So you can recline on comfortable cushions and be told the story of Hanuman by Jamila Gavin, or have a sit in Badger’s cosy study from Wind in the Willows, or enter the bed of Wendy, Johnny, and Michael from Peter Pan.
The way the exhibition approaches stories gives the visitor an immersive experience, in which objects, sounds, colours, lights, textures are all equally important in recreating the magic of literature.
We can learn from stories however old we are. Did you know that the Katherine Rundell, the youngest Fellow of All Souls, is (also) an author of children’s books? And that she would be a Wild Thing from Where the Wild Things Are? And I doubt many of you will know who Bellerophon is…
The ‘26 Characters’ exhibition proves that it is possible to learn at all ages, and that indeed this can be done while having
a jolly good time. The Story Museum is a place for children and adults alike, as stories and fun are just for every-one.
