|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
Museum of DeathTranscript
Well my husband and I started an art gallery about 10 years ago, and we would do shows on topics that were taboo in our society: death sex, religion, drugs. And one of the shows we did every year was artwork and letters from serial murderers, and in turn we would write them and get the artwork directly from the serial killers. It was one of the most attended shows we did every year. People, people love it. And we thought, well, you know, how can we use that, and also the fact that this building was a mortuary, about 100 years ago, how can we put those two together and so the museum of death was born.
How did you get started in that business?
Art gallery?
Yeah.
Well, my husband's an artist, and we opened a gallery to get his work out, and, in turn, and kind of overgrew or outgrew just his work and it become a lot of other things.
And so what kind of things do you have in the museum?
Oh, we've got body bags, coffins, mortician instruments, full-sized execution devices, artwork from serial murders. It's very graphics, photos, videos, very graphic death from driving accidents, murders, suicides. We try to show people that death isn't pretty, but it's not a bad thing either. Murder is a bad thing, whereas death in general isn't.
And how do you get the stuff for the museum?
From donations, mostly, and just opening up a museum that people just start coming in from the business - morticians, coroners, doctors, medical transport people, and they start dropping things off. A lot of mortician tools are actually from embalming areas in this city. It's fascinating to meet these people.
Not that we know of. There are torture museums, but that's a whole different museum. Torture you're alive. It's a whole different motive than death. The ultimate goal being death, but I mean torture, you could be torture for years. We try to stay away from that.
And how do people respond to the museum?
It varies. Some people love it. They think it's great what we're trying to do for society. I've had some people faint. I've had people pass out. I've had people throw up. I've had people run out emotionally screaming. It's pretty amazing to see the varied reactions. Some people get very angry, usually after I talk to them a bit, and find out what is causing their anger, and generally it's the fact that we show serial killers, and they think we are trying to promote the serial killers. And it is a fine line. We're not trying to promote serial killers, but I don't deny that they do exist in our societies. And if we don't talk about them, that doesn't mean that they're going to go away. And I think that's a good thing, expressing what's happening in our societies. So as soon as we talk intelligently about what they're upset about, then we can work through it.
And what do you think of our society's view of death?
Our society - American society's - view of death is very poor. Media portrays it as evil, bad, gross, and the mortician industry and the embalmers! What is this embalming thing? It's so weird! They try to make you look better when you're dead. They can make your eyeballs look real, put eyecaps in, and smile formers, and plasto, liquid plastic flesh. It's so weird. I think that's an unhealthy outlook from our society about death. Because it's natural. We're all going to die. It's what happens. And I think a hundred years ago, when we had to deal with out own dead, in the rural society, people died in their own homes, you were born and died in their homes, and the family members took care of them, prepared them for their coffin, buried them. And now it's so sterilized - you die in hospitals, you're sent to somebody else to get readied for death, and your family sees you almost alive. I think it's unhealthy. So I'm trying to show them from kind of a smaller area - morticians and such.
Whereas just 20 minutes from here, in Mexico, they have a day dedicated for the dead. Day of the Dead. Where you can can live all your life knowing you get to come back and visit every year after you're dead. The family comes out to your grave with your favorite dishes and your drinks. I think that's a little healthier than here. Maybe's it's a little weird and whatever, but it's healthier than what we do.
People are so upset at our dead dog down there. And I find that hard to believe. I think it's an interesting fact. They won't even come in the door because they see this dead dog there. She's been dead 30 years, it's not like she's some smelly and decaying dog. She was taxidermied. And right across the street, in one of the restaurants, Moose McGillicuty's, they have a huge dead moose, right in the doorway, and noone even notices that this dead moose is there. A wild animal killed to be put on the wall - this is a loving pet that died naturally. But people, they don't want to hear it, it's like this horrible myth, that pets even die. What's wrong with a dead pet? It's just really interesting people's reactions to what we do.
What other trivia? We have a ghost here. One of the early morticians that was here, he committed suicide, June 4, 1894, and he hangs out, and people occasionally see him, and I've seen him, my husband's seen him.
What does he look like?
Well you never really see this person, his name was E.W. Tebitts, so I know it's man, and I always see a shadow of a man, kind of a taller man. It's kind of like "Hi E.W." He scares you. He's not mean.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Not really . . . Death's not bad . . . We're trying to put the "fun" back in funeral.
|
index | about | search | teachertips | guestbook/discussion | quiz
In producing this site, the team member in San Diego serendipitously discovered that there is a 
How did this museum start?
Are there any other museums like this?
What are some of the facts and trivia you've learned about death in your work on the topic?