The Museum of Innocence (2008) traces 30 years of protagonist Kemal’s passionate, obsessive love for Füsun, an affair that is in turn, consummated, stymied, unrequited, then rekindled only to end in loss.
The (initially) fictional Museum of Innocence created at the novel’s end, in an act of veneration and memorialisation, of consolation borne out of grief, became a real museum established by Pamuk in an old building in Istanbul’s historic Çukurcuma neighbourhood in 2012.
Through its display of objects used, worn, seen, collected and dreamed of, all meticulously arranged in boxes and display cabinets, and of voices heard, the museum reflects a period in Istanbul’s past as well as stories of the novel’s characters, captured through fiction and artefact.
These include the 4,213 cigarettes that Füsun smoked, and the attic room in which Kemal writes both novel and museum into life.
It is a much city archive as art installation, and in 2013 it was nominated in the architecture category for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year awards.
This resulted in an enchanting collision of art and life, as one bright spring day at the museum, I took delivery of real versions of fictional artefacts that had until then existed only in my imagination.
They were for display in our real museum for the delight of real visitors. Another charming collision is the entry ticket for the museum that is printed on the concluding pages of the novel.
Helen Charman is the head of learning at the Design Museum. Designs of the Year 2014 is at the Design Museum until 25 August
The (initially) fictional Museum of Innocence created at the novel’s end, in an act of veneration and memorialisation, of consolation borne out of grief, became a real museum established by Pamuk in an old building in Istanbul’s historic Çukurcuma neighbourhood in 2012.
Through its display of objects used, worn, seen, collected and dreamed of, all meticulously arranged in boxes and display cabinets, and of voices heard, the museum reflects a period in Istanbul’s past as well as stories of the novel’s characters, captured through fiction and artefact.
These include the 4,213 cigarettes that Füsun smoked, and the attic room in which Kemal writes both novel and museum into life.
It is a much city archive as art installation, and in 2013 it was nominated in the architecture category for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year awards.
This resulted in an enchanting collision of art and life, as one bright spring day at the museum, I took delivery of real versions of fictional artefacts that had until then existed only in my imagination.
They were for display in our real museum for the delight of real visitors. Another charming collision is the entry ticket for the museum that is printed on the concluding pages of the novel.
Helen Charman is the head of learning at the Design Museum. Designs of the Year 2014 is at the Design Museum until 25 August
