The Museum of Almost Realities
2017Exhibited:
- The School for Poetic Computation, NYC (2017)
- Seattle Art Museum (2018)
- Boombox Chicago (2018)
Press: The Evergrey, KUOW Public Radio, Bushwick Junction
︎︎︎AlmostRealities.org
A narrative installation about a collection of artifacts from the life you might have had.
It’s based on 3 concepts:
Visitors wander through a gallery of significant everyday objects, each accompanied by a brief poetic narrative directly addressing the viewer. They are invited to contribute their own regrets and what-ifs, and then leave with a personalized receipt of their own “almost reality.”
This fictional museum invites the visitor to contemplate how we curate our personal narratives and acknowledge the importance of what we choose to keep, remember, and let go.
Since its debut in NYC and subsequent showings at the Seattle Art Museum and a Chicago popup gallery, the Museum of Almost Realities has engaged over a thousand visitors and collected hundreds of heartfelt visitor contributions. Each artifact in the collection is secretly based on a real event from the artist's life, an alternate-reality autobiography made physical.
There is a fake museum website at AlmostRealities.org, with visitor information and an overview of the museum.
There are two additional wings, the Possible Futures Play Area and the Library of Future Happiness (shown at the Seattle Art Museum).
It’s based on 3 concepts:
- Objects hold memory. This is why we have souvenirs and mementos.
- “For every choice you make, you kill off a possible future. Sometimes you have to live with their ghosts.”
- You only put important objects in a museum once they are no longer in use.
Visitors wander through a gallery of significant everyday objects, each accompanied by a brief poetic narrative directly addressing the viewer. They are invited to contribute their own regrets and what-ifs, and then leave with a personalized receipt of their own “almost reality.”
This fictional museum invites the visitor to contemplate how we curate our personal narratives and acknowledge the importance of what we choose to keep, remember, and let go.
Since its debut in NYC and subsequent showings at the Seattle Art Museum and a Chicago popup gallery, the Museum of Almost Realities has engaged over a thousand visitors and collected hundreds of heartfelt visitor contributions. Each artifact in the collection is secretly based on a real event from the artist's life, an alternate-reality autobiography made physical.
There is a fake museum website at AlmostRealities.org, with visitor information and an overview of the museum.
There are two additional wings, the Possible Futures Play Area and the Library of Future Happiness (shown at the Seattle Art Museum).
Seattle Art Museum
Chicago
Photos by Jen Au, Filip Wolak, Ann Fu, April Soetarman