You shall be able to walk inside my rooms soon. Please do not rush your visit. Take your time. Wander leisurely along my halls, listen to the stories captive within my walls. Allow my staircases to lead you towards different floors, virtual exhibitions, written or video testimonies. I am waiting for you to acknowledge the exhibits of abandonment, to explore their 3D versions, to study the documents in my archives and storerooms. I am the Museum of Abandonment and I have hundreds of stories to tell about abandonment, hope, spectacular twirls and rebounds of the soul.
To all those who shall visit me I am bound to tell stories which are neither to be forgotten nor abandoned, stemming from their very own stories. I shall utter them gently, in the comforting voice that those who inspired my collections, the abandoned, would have needed in their childhood years.
I am a digital museum, made up of clouds of dots, but I have been modelled after a real place, by digitally scanning the Home Hospital for Irrecoverable Deficient Minors in Sighetu Marmației.
Why did I want to recreate this building? Because it is a symbolic space for what abandonment has meant and for the trauma of institutionalisation in Romania. Because it is from within these walls that the shocking images of the life of children in Romanian orphanages have been circulated in the entire world through feature stories and video shootings. My digital walls look like those of Sighet, but their fate is a different one. They are not meant to hurt and isolate, but to heal and contain the pain of ABANDONMENT. And because they are made out of pixels they can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. You can listen to my story for as long as you can, whenever you can and, most importantly, you can always come back.
My collections will be assembled out of digital objects and their stories. My magical walls, created by means of new media techniques, will allow new possibilities of exploration for you, the visitors, but will also function as complex creative resources for my creators. The visiting experience will be immersive and interactive.
My spaces will be suited to non-linear exploration; the objects, sound textures and stories I am made out of will allow a different visitation and experience from each and every one of you visitors. You shall not only be able to experience the museum housed inside my walls, but also to take part in it by sending us your stories, which I shall carefully archive, whether signed or anonymous, in our files and in my heritage.
My doors shall soon be open!
The Museum of Abandonment