The Museum of Curiosities, or Monsieur Pompier's Museum of Curiosities, has been fascinating viewers on Twitter since January 2012. The page has amassed an impressive 46.2k followers through sharing over 5,000 photos and videos and by captivating audiences from all over the globe. According to the virtual museum’s website, “It all started in a tiny corner of the internet around ten years ago when a strange man named Paul began posting interesting and unusual items from the past on Twitter and Instagram.”
“Over the following decade, the popularity of these accounts grew to such a degree that the idea of turning this online prescience into reality became something increasingly hard to ignore,” the museum’s creators continued. “And so, in 2023, it was announced that Monsieur Pompier would launch Ireland’s first ever Museum of Curiosities the following year and (as of February 2023) is currently finalizing the collection, raising funds and looking for a home for this world of wonders.”
That’s right, pandas. Come 2024, you’ll be able to visit Ireland and take an IRL look at some of the world’s quirkiest and most fascinating objects and images. You can actually donate to the campaign right here if you’re interested in helping it become a reality! And if you’d like to learn more about Monsieur Pompier's Museum of Curiosities, or the musical group behind it all, lucky for us, Bored Panda was able to get in touch with them about 8 months ago when we first featured their Twitter account.
Paul, aka Monsieur Pompier himself, previously shared that some of his initial inspiration for the account and museum project came from one of his favorite websites on the internet, 'The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things' curated by Dr. Chelsea Nichols and Viktor Wynd's 'Museum Of Curiosities' in London, as well as various other museums both real and fictional who operate in the same strange world. “I'm a magpie for anything oddball and unusual, especially from the past, so I'm always on the lookout for stories about things like old medical devices, bad taxidermy, the occult, bad inventions, weird unsolved mysteries, and so on,” he explained.
We were fortunate enough to get in touch with Paul again for this article, and he gave us some updates on what he's been doing since we last spoke. "I’ve spent the last eight months collecting weird and wonderful curiosities for my museum which I hope to launch at some point in 2024," he told Bored Panda. "I’m still quite a way off, but little by little I see the rooms filling up with all manner of oddities, making me look like something of a hoarder (which I think is a good sign that I’m getting closer to having enough stuff to launch the museum!). I’m currently seeking donations to help make the museum a reality here and you can donate whatever you like - be that money or your own curiosities which you’d like to see featured in the museum!"
"Meanwhile, I’ve continued performing all over Ireland and Europe with my Travelling Freakshow project, which for those who don’t know (i.e., most of the universe!), is a strange mix of dark cabaret, performance art and eccentric psychedelic songs penned by yours truly under my pseudonym Monsieur Pompier," Paul continued.
Paul previously described the musical group as a "very eccentric rock group and sometimes cabaret act" that's been touring around Europe since 2018 with “a rotating cast of characters including The Ear Fairy, Guts The Cat, The Crabbit, as well as newcomers such as Betty Bogweed and Sister Whispers."
"On stage, I attempt to sing my ridiculous songs whilst the 'freaks' interact with me or the audience as they interpret and act out the story of their individual songs," he explained. There's no question that their music is worth checking out!
Paul also explained how he decides what kind of content to feature on his account. "I take inspiration from real life curiosity museums like the Viktor Wynd Museum in London, or the wonderful Prehistoria Museum in Toronto, which I had the pleasure of visiting last year," he explained. "Another real gem that I discovered on my travels was the Design Panopticon in Berlin which focuses on bizarre household and industrial objects rather than traditional 'curiosities.'"
"Personally, I’m most interested in curiosities which have a peculiar social history attached to them," Paul added. "Dr Chelsea Nichols of the Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things catalogues items like this, ranging from magic potatoes to explosive rats."
