Fear! Wonder! At this Alberta museum, mysterious objects come to rest (in peace, we hope)

There's a doll in The Museum of Fear and Wonder that, depending on your leaning, could be read as charming or chill-inducing. You can make a decision on your own about whether the doll, in itself, is frightful, but it's a good example of how the stories we build around objects have everything to do with how we see them.

Watch the video:

Take a tour of the Museum of Fear and Wonder

7 years ago

Duration 4:26

At Bergen, Alberta's new Museum of Fear and Wonder, objects with a mysterious past find their new forever home.

These sorts of complicated mysterious objects make up the collection of The Museum, founded by brothers Brendan Griebel and Jude Griebel. There's already a tradition of museums that house curiosities, but the focus of this one is particularly on objects that have a psychological or narrative association. So, inside the re-purposed army barracks near Bergen, Alberta, you can find things like the aforementioned doll, a chess set made by a death row prisoner in the period before his execution, dollhouses, anatomical models, and plenty of other objects that have had emotional relationships with their owners or makers.

In the above video, the brothers take you inside — if you dare.

The Museum of Fear and Wonder will be open June 1-August 30, and you can visit it by appointment at the end of a country road about an hour north of Calgary. It's free, and Brendan and Jude will arrange a tour for you, whenever possible. Guest academics and curators encouraged, Black Mirror associations discouraged. And also, don't just show up — unannounced guests will not be let in, because that's just creepy.

Watch CBC Arts: Exhibitionists online or on Friday nights at 11:30pm (12am NT) and Sundays at 3:30pm (4pm NT) on CBC Television.