The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London has partnered with food design company Bompas & Parr to create Curses!, an interactive and multi-sensory installation exploring curses, ancient rites and superstitions.
Equipped with a headset and a map, visitors will explore the museum’s collection of more than 88,000 artefacts and be guided towards specific cursed objects and stories such as Unlucky Mummy, a curse that has been credited with the sinking of the Titanic, as well as burial masks and voodoo dolls.
An introductory film will explore contemporary superstitions, before later entering a multi-sensory chamber designed to evoke the physical and subconscious symptoms of being cursed.
Audio commentary from Roger Luckhurst, the author of The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy, and psychologists, will discuss curses as psychological phenomenon, horror stories and myths perpetuated through popular culture.
“It has been said that our common superstitions have lingered for thousands of years, nurtured by our need to manufacture control over uncertainty,” said Harry Parr, the director of Bompas & Parr. “Fear is the main source of superstition, and we hope to play on these innate fears, while mirroring them in the archaic tales we have been conditioned to disbelieve.”
Curses! opens on 18 November and will run until 16 December, with tickets costing £6 per person.
Bompas & Parr started as a food and drink design agency but now creates multi-sensory experiences for brands as well as cultural institutions across the world.
Last month, it held created an interactive and edible exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, where young visitors could explore different tastes and flavours, and take part in a competition to create interactive edible museum installations.
And later this month, the firm is collaborating with the National Trust and the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London on a new installation, The Imminent Diorama, which will allow the public to experience what the city might look like from the top of the Horniman building over the next 80 years if it is not protected.
Equipped with a headset and a map, visitors will explore the museum’s collection of more than 88,000 artefacts and be guided towards specific cursed objects and stories such as Unlucky Mummy, a curse that has been credited with the sinking of the Titanic, as well as burial masks and voodoo dolls.
An introductory film will explore contemporary superstitions, before later entering a multi-sensory chamber designed to evoke the physical and subconscious symptoms of being cursed.
Audio commentary from Roger Luckhurst, the author of The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy, and psychologists, will discuss curses as psychological phenomenon, horror stories and myths perpetuated through popular culture.
“It has been said that our common superstitions have lingered for thousands of years, nurtured by our need to manufacture control over uncertainty,” said Harry Parr, the director of Bompas & Parr. “Fear is the main source of superstition, and we hope to play on these innate fears, while mirroring them in the archaic tales we have been conditioned to disbelieve.”
Curses! opens on 18 November and will run until 16 December, with tickets costing £6 per person.
Bompas & Parr started as a food and drink design agency but now creates multi-sensory experiences for brands as well as cultural institutions across the world.
Last month, it held created an interactive and edible exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, where young visitors could explore different tastes and flavours, and take part in a competition to create interactive edible museum installations.
And later this month, the firm is collaborating with the National Trust and the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London on a new installation, The Imminent Diorama, which will allow the public to experience what the city might look like from the top of the Horniman building over the next 80 years if it is not protected.
