Amsterdam is a city with a particularly strong tourist culture. Known for its red light district and easy access to cannabis it might surprise many of its visitors that it’s also got a pretty great collection of museums.
The Best - Micropia
For me a science museum is always a challenging prospect. As a science communicator myself I'm always thinking about what I would do to improve the place (even more than I normally do) which means that it's rare that they'll get a fair shake. That's why, having worked with so many over the years, that it's a real surprise when one manages to genuinely delight me. Micropia is a museum centred around the understanding of the tiny fungus, bacteria, and pathogens that make up our world whether we know it or not. Opening in 2014 it has all the hallmarks of something new and with not insignificant funding. Shiny graphics, excellent equipment, and a clear message. Featuring a clean design with carefully chosen artefacts the only part that you can’t fully take in is deliberately the microbe wall. A selection of (presumably faked or preserved) petri dishes that make a stunning display showing the wide variety of different kinds of microbes that exist on a human visible scale.
One part of the Microbe Wall (Picture From Micropia)
The rest of the museum is significantly more deliberate and focused being made largely of a series of stations set up as scientific benches bubbling away presumably providing the perfect environment for a chosen kind of microbe. The display tells you a bit about them, what they do, where they can be found and then a microscope lets you see them for yourself, live and in the tiny flesh.
Whilst each of these stations are largely self contained the museum overall uses projected displays and sculptures to tie them all together into a grand web of life trying to show how all of these microorganisms live together and are necessary.
Image of tree of life projection which moves around consolidating previous ideas (Picture From Micropia)
Following on from the main exhibition is a downstairs lab like area with a variety of hands-on activities built up like a science lab. Encouraging children to engage with some microbe themed tasks.
Tackling Difficult Topics
From such a description it might not be obvious as to why I've picked it as the best museum. Its design and form is a replication of many other science centres the world over so long as they are new and big enough. What does this do to stand above the crowd?
In my opinion it comes from its focus on a fairly small (pun intended) topic. Whilst microbe science is a huge field any typical science centre might only dedicate a small space to it, maybe a room at the utmost. Here instead a whole museum is dedicated to the topic whilst continuing to deliver on quality and understandability, and this is no trivial feat.
This is something of a theme I personally find with small vs big museums. The big museums can pick and choose only the best and easiest to engage with parts of topic but with something more dedicated there has to be significant effort. There’s a reason Micropia can market itself as ‘The only museum entirely dedicated to microbes’.
Stamps for Success
Beyond its excellent design, hands-on activities, and laser focus the standout feature of Micropia is its stamp card. Perhaps taking inspiration from the Japanese Stamp Rally this was your museum map and guide which had on its front a blank circle. Then when going to the various exhibit stations around the museum there were slots where you could push your card into the slot and get it stamped with a nice little picture of whatever the thing was.
Picture of a Near Complete Stamp Card (Picture From Trip Advisor)
I am a big believer in doing things to engage children with museums and I think that something like this, a broad freeform activity that encourages them to be observant and actively engage is perfect.
Of course, something like this can also appeal to adults and it became my immediate mission to complete my own stamp card. Sadly some of the stamps were missing (presumably for repair) which meant the card could not be completed. This was something of a killjoy and would also presumably get worse as the exhibits age so is perhaps something that needs additional support.
The Worst - Sexmuesum Amsterdam
It will probably not surprise you that a sex museum isn't great. There can be plenty of hand wringing about how our modern world deals with one of the most basic facts of life and especially sex workers who remain perhaps the most marginalised and exploited profession in the world despite its ubiquity across time and place.
However, in recent years at least some of the stigma has started to be lost. And places like London's Vagina Museum have shown that it is possible to take a more mature and informative stance when it comes to topics that turns most to giggles, some to shy away, and others still to fits of outrage.
Where better then, for something like this, than Amsterdam. The city where sex is visibly available for purchase down its main tourist route. Was I expecting something thought provoking and profound from Sex Museum Amsterdam then? No. Was I disappointed all the same? Yes.
One of the few images I can put up of the Sex Museum for obvious reasons (Picture From Peder Sanholm)
I will perhaps post at some other point about things that purport to be museums but are nothing of the sort, but this straddles the line. It is clear almost immediately that this is a place with no desire to inform or inspire. But rather to titillate.
Now I don't want to come across as puritanical, I enjoy a knob joke as much as the next person. But when there are cabinets of different penises, from stone statues to wooden carvings with no context aside from a date and place of origin the gag quickly wears thin.
There are of course many great stories about sex, and cultural responses to it even if you’re just looking for a funny story. What about when Pope Pius IX ordered in 1857 that all the penises on vatican statues should be chopped off, or the Japanese Festival of the Steel Phallus, or even the development of art and rituals in Indian Pleasure palaces? All of which can offer an interesting insight into the world which still shows you a funny statue of a cock.
A Tourist Attraction
The simple answer here is that this isn't actually supposed to be a museum at all. This is a tourist attraction akin to a fairground or river cruise, to be enjoyed for a laugh when it's a bit too early to be doing any serious drinking on a lads weekend away or a hen do.
It was in this spirit certainly that I got the most enjoyment out of it. Being stuck behind a small group of middle aged ladies from Liverpool with an infectious laugh who giggled with delight at the robot flasher, or the butt sculpture on the staircase that blew air at you as you walked past. Occasionally sharing their own stories such as how the weirdly shaped penis sculpture reminded her of dodgy Darren from number 36.
Any attempt to engage with the artefacts or the stories behind them constantly pays second service to another attempt to shock. The whole effect being that there is no real interest to be found, but that equally it is one of the furthest things from erotic I've ever come across. The closest comparison I can think of is to my impression of a Victorian sideshow, a cheap laugh and thrill for all the ladies and gentlemen. And this is perhaps exactly all it is trying to be.
The Responsibility of a Platform
I don't believe however, that this is a total defence against criticism of it as a museum, especially when it uses the word in its title. Even within Amsterdam itself there are other museums that use the same draw of sex and drugs to bring people in but still provide a compelling story.
The Red Light Secrets: Museum of Prostitution for example, whilst due plenty of criticism itself, pulls in a tourist to the other side of the red curtain with promises of tales of kink and depravity (which it does deliver on) but it also uses its platform to talk about the abuse many of the sex workers face, the constant government pressures on the industry and much else besides.
It is for this reason that the Sex Museum is the worst in Amsterdam. It has a platform and an audience (it was probably the most crowded place I visited) but it does nothing with it.
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