Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History is located in London, in the basement of the absinthe bar “The last Tuesday society.”
Upon entering, visitors are immediately greeted by an unusual sight : taxidermied zebras on a spiral staircase in a bar, leading you down into a world where the boundary between “collection” and “obsession” vanishes.
It’s a place that forces you to define your own boundaries of what is art and what is just plain wrong.
The museum is not curated for sensitive visitors.
A wunderkabinett like no other
Founded in 2015 via Kickstarter, it regularly hosts events on history, alternative arts, exhibitions, and private parties.
The wunderkabinett in the basement offers a quirky world of unusual objects.
Everything on display here aims to overturn the vision of traditional museums. Here you will find everything that has fascinated its creator, Viktor Wynd, in one way or another.
The container and its contents are irrelevant.
Hundreds of bones, taxidermy mounted on human mannequins, but also celebrity feces (including Amy Winehouse!), erotic drawings, and McDonald’s toys. There are also used condoms, wax casts, mortuary frames, the hair of a Titanic survivor (wtf?), and temporary exhibitions amongst all this.
A fine line between curiosity and discomfort
It mixes pornography of people with deformities with popcorn buckets.
Better be warned than sorry, because that stuff stays with you.
It navigates a razor-thin line between historical preservation and pure voyeurism.
At the back, in the private room, between a taxidermy specimen and a merman, it is possible to rent the space. A table with a human skeleton takes up center stage.
On it is a medallion stating that a child was conceived there in 2006.
Depending on your personal ethics, you’ll either find yourself fascinated by this rejection of societal norms or wanting to speedrun through the basement to get back to the bar.
Beyond the basement
Viktor Wynd isn’t just a collector : he’s an explorer. He regularly organizes expeditions to New Guinea, the Amazon, and Benin to engage with cultures that have a vastly different relationship with death and the body than our constrained Western society. This eccentricity is what makes the place so vital.
Admission is £10.
Pro tip : Have a glass of absinthe first : it helps the madness go down smoother.
Warning : Graphic content moving forward, proceed with caution.
