Post by max23 on Oct 21, 2015 15:07:32 GMT -5
The Museum of Menstruation website has been taken down. All that remains is this message:
These were the best, most exciting, most useful things I'd ever done, this 3000-page online museum and its four-year-old predecessor in my house.
For decades, from around the world, newspapers, television, radio and the Web reported on this fount of information. Researchers found unique items. Students and teachers found information for class and publication. In its brick-and-mortar incarnation, some visitors even discussed menstruation with strangers for the first time. It opened many eyes and minds, including mine.
But pondering the museum storage boxes and shelves in 1996, a woman in her twenties told me, "You'll be sacrificed." Sacrificed to or for what she didn't say but I suspected it was for sticking my mind into what many persons regarded as their territory.
She was correct.
To avoid further nastiness, I'm eliminating the museum.
I'm spending the next months cataloging the 5000 items in the archives. I'll ship them as far as possible from America, I hope to Australia's largest museum, The Powerhouse. Would that my spiritual sister Megan Hicks were still there, that museum's curator of medicine, who conjured exciting exhibits and encouraged me with her visit here. And I won't forget our hamburgers outside Harry's Bar. (Unfortunately, no relation!)
Among the thousands of supporters and visitors to the museum, I especially thank my former comrades in the Pentagon, Larry W. Bryant and Willard Kawakami Morris, the only persons I dared talk to early on about such a fantasy. Along with their moral support, Larry suggested I start this Web site 19 years ago; Bill contributed an article, constructed a display support and answered my call when a German TV crew said it needed another person in a shoot. Both stood by me from beginning to end.
As an artist, it's time to get back to my watercolors and oils.
I wish you the best!
MUM was the word!
Harry Finley
www.mum.org/
These were the best, most exciting, most useful things I'd ever done, this 3000-page online museum and its four-year-old predecessor in my house.
For decades, from around the world, newspapers, television, radio and the Web reported on this fount of information. Researchers found unique items. Students and teachers found information for class and publication. In its brick-and-mortar incarnation, some visitors even discussed menstruation with strangers for the first time. It opened many eyes and minds, including mine.
But pondering the museum storage boxes and shelves in 1996, a woman in her twenties told me, "You'll be sacrificed." Sacrificed to or for what she didn't say but I suspected it was for sticking my mind into what many persons regarded as their territory.
She was correct.
To avoid further nastiness, I'm eliminating the museum.
I'm spending the next months cataloging the 5000 items in the archives. I'll ship them as far as possible from America, I hope to Australia's largest museum, The Powerhouse. Would that my spiritual sister Megan Hicks were still there, that museum's curator of medicine, who conjured exciting exhibits and encouraged me with her visit here. And I won't forget our hamburgers outside Harry's Bar. (Unfortunately, no relation!)
Among the thousands of supporters and visitors to the museum, I especially thank my former comrades in the Pentagon, Larry W. Bryant and Willard Kawakami Morris, the only persons I dared talk to early on about such a fantasy. Along with their moral support, Larry suggested I start this Web site 19 years ago; Bill contributed an article, constructed a display support and answered my call when a German TV crew said it needed another person in a shoot. Both stood by me from beginning to end.
As an artist, it's time to get back to my watercolors and oils.
I wish you the best!
MUM was the word!
Harry Finley
www.mum.org/
