An enchanting exhibition opened its doors last week, for a tantalisingly short run, bang in the heart of Oxford. The Story Museum will officially open in 2014, bringing to new life the sprawling floors of the old post office and telephone exchange in Rochester House, on Pembroke Street. But now and again, before its metamorphosis is complete, there will be a chance to glimpse the magic that lies behind its doors. I had the chance to take some pictures there when it was still pretty much untouched – after years lying empty, watched over only by pigeons – and the building is still in a state of utterly charming dishevelment.
The Other Worlds exhibition features a lovely series of offbeat rooms, where artists and writers have collaborated to create something headily idiosyncratic for the young, or just the young-at-heart. Rummage for an envelope in the Queen of Found Objects’ secret store room, and you can take your object home and write a story about it, to send back in. Shelter from the rain in the Word Storm, and see what happens to those who get trapped in a raindrop. Add your own ideas into the half-finished story on a battered old typewriter; write a letter to your future self in the Time Traveller’s Bureau (which will arrive on your doormat in a year’s time); scrawl something you’ve never told anyone in the Your Secret’s Safe room. Or simply opt instead to pick a numbered key and unlock a box containing someone else’s secrets. Don’t say you’ve never been tempted.
You can even note down some of the much-missed items you’ve mislaid over the years, for Eileen, the Keeper of Lost Things, to try to track down and return to you, while revelling in the ephemera already stashed in her room to be reunited with its owners. Although frankly she’ll have a job returning some of the items being rather joyously added to the list by visitors (my mum’s marbles, my mojo, my heart; you know who you are. And that 6-foot badger that answers to Frank? Maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough. Where did you last see him?). Or climb up the attic ladder and look through a periscope to see just how GPO maintenance man Bob spends his fag breaks. (All family friendly, guaranteed.) Here even the notices are whimsical – announcing ‘dragons only allowed to smoke in courtyard’, or that ‘absolutely nothing will happen if you pull this cord’ (I defy you not to pull it). And so on. A world away from the normal list of don’ts in most museums.
From the gloriously voluptuous mural of Story Angels curving their way around the entrance archway to the emptiness of a solitary swing hanging in a room full of children’s voices, the lavish experiments in the National Audio Sneeze Analysis Laboratory (NASAL) to a series of pictures finding odd faces around the museum’s fixtures and fittings, there’s plenty to stimulate the imagination of even those who think their inner child has long-since outgrown short trousers and started work in a bank. And before you go in, or after you leave, check out the shop windows on Pembroke Street, offering such goodies as Fib-Buster Shrink-Nose Cream, 99 Dalmatian Puppies to a good home, Glass Slipper Polish and a Boat for Hire (for messing about on the river).
What? You need more persuading? But you’ve only got till 27 May (Thursdays thru’ Sundays, mostly afternoons; check here for the times) before the clock strikes midnight and the whole thing turns back into a pumpkin, like all the best fairytales. You know the drill.
All images © 2012 Sophie Goldsworthy. All rights reserved.
