The Museum of Small and Overlooked Things

The Museum of Small and Overlooked Things is a new temporary museum created and curated by hundreds of local children in each new place the project visits. These children generously donate to the museum objects from their own private collections that they care about but that they believe adults think are uninteresting or unimportant.

For adults a visit to the museum is an opportunity to understand the joys, concerns and preoccupations of the city’s youngest inhabitants. At the same time, the museum is also a means of reflecting on a more political notion of “importance”. Who gets to determine what is important and should be valued and treasured and saved? Where and why are those decisions made?

Inside the museum’s glass cabinets are contained not only the stories of the hundreds of children who helped create it, but perhaps also the answer to the question of what a museum is and how and why it works. These civic machines for turning objects into history. These rooms where we assemble meaning from the glitter and the garbage of everyday life.

The Museum of Small and Overlooked Things was commissioned by Staatstheater Mainz in 2025.

2024
Staatstheater, Mainz

2025
ANTI Festival, Kuopio