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“The art of an open mind...”
Welcome to our Museum.
We're a global museum, dedicated to the unexpected beauty of... bird shit.
The Museum of Bird Shit is probably the most absurd museum in the world. It’s dedicated to one of the most despised fenomenas around the globe: bird shit. Our museum challenges your perception of the world and thereby your reality. It takes something everybody hates (bird shit) and changes it into a thing of beauty, maybe even into art.
A taste of our collection
The museum has a vast and ever expanding collection of artworks. The next 8 pictures will give you a taste (sorry for that word) of our strange collection.
Location
We are a hybrid museum. You can visit us online and in the real world. We’re in every park in every city of the world. Probably even in the street where you live. The only thing you have to do is change your mindset and pay attention. And maybe take a picture and send it to us...
Why birdshit?
The museum has 4 underlying messages:
BEAUTY = EVERWHERE
We don't have to fly to Moma in New York, The Tate Modern in London, or The Louvre in Paris to experience art and beauty. Art and beauty are anywhere around us. Even in bird shit. We just have to pay attention. And change our perception.
REALITY = PERCEPTION
Reality doesn’t exist. Or, to put it more accurate: we’re not able to experience reality directly. We can only experience it through our five (or six) senses. This means our perception is subjective. It is not ‘real’. So bird shit isn't neccesarily gross. That's just your perception.
MEANING = STORY
Our brains are meaning-machines. They attach a meaning to everything we perceive. In een flash of a second. But that meaning is nothing more then a story we tell ourselves. A story that is molded by our experience and the culture we are born in.
STORY = PRISON
As soon as our brain attaches a story to our perception, it will do everything it can to stick to that story. Our brains will always present bird shit as something gross. It keeps us trapped in a frame. Our dominant story is our prison.
The important thing to know is that we can change that story. From "Birdshit is gross" to "Bird shit is art".
"Gross?"
"Art!"
The subtle art of reframing
How do you reframe birdshit from being gross to beautifull.
First of all: you probably won’t be able to not experience it as gross. Not as an initial reaction. You are wired to see it that way, so you will.
But
Not just birdshit
Now, of course the automatic-meaning-machine in our brains, is not only active when we see birdshit. It works all the time. As soon as we perceive something, our mind attaches meaning to it. It creates a story, that we mistake for reality. But that percieved reality is shaped and molded by our experiences, our education and our culture. We see things through the lense of our expoeriences. And the story triggers automatic reactions:
- Disgust when we see birdshit
- Fear when we see a spider or a snake
The Benefits of Reframing
By de-automating our perception and reactions
Birdshit for a Better World
We think the automatic one-dimensional framing is the underlying cause to many problems in the world.
- Wars can exist because both parties believe strongly in their story, and are unable (and unwilling) to see the other side.
- Problems often stand in our way. But even problems are just a story. If we change our perception we can see opportunities instead of obstacles and act upon them.
- Negativity is a frame. Shakespeare wrote: there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Change your perception and make the world more positive.
A visit to the Museum of Bird Shit is not enough to change the world. But it can teach us a lesson: if we’re able to reframe even bird shit into a thing of beauty, we’ve made the first step to reframing everything else that happens to us.
Disgusted?
Some people can’t make the leap from birdshit to art. Their automatic reaction is so strong that they can’t look beyond the