ArticleThe Irish Emigration Museum, Part 1: The Art Of Being Unique

It might sound outrageously subjective but I do insist that being unique is indeed an artform - just like music or, say, sculpture. Like with any other art, some artists are more talented than others, and then there is top-talent - those precious few, whose creativity takes one's breath away. Original Titanic tickets are a perfect example of such creativity - an almost unrivaled stroke of genius that emotionally connects the exhibition with everybody who happens to see it, thus providing for an unforgettable “Titanic Experience”. I said, “_almost_ unrivaled” - because of the following touch of sheer inspiration

A “Visitor's Passport”, imagined and designed by the Irish Emigration Museum. While there are likely some local visitors, many museum guests are foreign travelers dealing with passports firsthand. Receiving one such, together with their admission ticket, prompts them to “suspend their disbelief” and identify with a myriad of characters, whose stories are told in a variety of ways over twenty halls of…well, everything. Fame (and sometimes, infamy), courage, perseverance, luck, hopes and fears of the unknown… Each hall is a distinct space with its own strict agenda - and the Passport (that is also a map) helps the make-believe travelers to both find their way around those spaces and to validate their journey. To do so, they are encouraged to stamp their passport in each and every hall they are about to leave - and the very act of stamping their own passport adds to the experience by allowing an unheard-of degree of control (in reality, it's always some others who stamp our passports and give permissions when it comes to entering a foreign space). The creators of the Passport might well have intended to emphasize that feeling of being in control (in as subtle a way as it may be), because it strengthens the main message necessary for every emigrant to first survive and then succeed: “You are the Master of your Fate!”

If the Emigration Museum were pitched against the Titanic Experience in a creative battle of top-talents, the clash of their main weapons - the Passport and the Original Titanic Ticket - would result in a tie as there is no daylight between those two amazing inventions. There is, however, a little extra offered by the Emigration Museum that might serve as a tie-break to tip the scales in its favour. Namely, the Museum admission ticket allows for return visits within a month of the first one - and it has to, because the twenty-halls exhibition is huge, in every sense of the word. There is simply so much to experience that, to truly enjoy it, one has to take hir time, and a lot of it! Even before the experience begins, there is an initially unexpected but nagging question. Considering that whatever people usually celebrate - history, heritage, success or simply way of life - is their own, it's hard not to feel puzzled as to how one can possibly celebrate emigration that is seemingly synonymous to “estrangement through parting ways". Answering that question is, in fact, the Museum's main mission - and the most fascinating part of the experience it provides…