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POO-TRAIT GALLERY
I’m the owner of Britain’s only poo museum and spend hours polishing turds
The unusual exhibition is going to tour the country
A MUSEUM on the Isle of Wight is asking people to send them their poo to become part of an interactive exhibition.
The National Poo Museum has created the world’s first “poo aquarium” featuring stools from people from all walks of life.
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The samples are collected, frozen, set in resin and put in a water tank exhibit which will tour the country.
So far they have had donations from a midwife, a policeman, a baby, an artist and a Cambridge scientist among others.
Museum curator Daniel Roberts said: “We’ve preserved them in clear resin spheres in a glass tank.
“It’s interactive, people can circulate around and can press buttons and control how fast the poo spins, and change the lighting and add bubbles.
You have to spend ages polishing them to make them look nice, the hours I’ve spent polishing poo is amazing.
“Each poo has a QR code and they can scan them as they go past and see scientific papers or funny songs, or facts.
“After we came up with the idea we had to quickly build a drying machine, it has to be dry to put it in the resin.
“People’s poos are different sizes, it was quite bizarre and not that nice, but it was dealing with the resin that made it horrible not the poos.
“You have to spend ages polishing them to make them look nice, the hours I’ve spent polishing poo is amazing.
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“We add floats to them, we have floaters and sinkers, so they can circulate and go up and down.
“They go round like fishes in a tank.”
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Daniel, 53, said the idea came about from talking to visitors at the museum which opened as a mobile exhibit in 2016 but is now permanently based in an old gun battery in Sandown.
He said “All the visitors who came to the museum surprisingly started opening up about their own gut health issues and problems, sometimes they were in tears.
“It was something we hadn’t expected.
It’s amazing how poo brings people together, it’s something we all have in common even if we don’t talk about it.
“We wanted to do something to help people talk about it and get past this stupid taboo and recognise that we all poo.
“We thought why don’t we ask people to hand over their poo, preserve them like we do with the animal poo, build something beautiful and take it out to the public.
“If people dare to show their poo to the public and make it beautiful we can get rid of the embarrassment around it.”
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The aquarium is currently sitting in Daniel’s sitting room in East Cowes where he lives with partner Lucia Para, a children’s book illustrator.
Daniel said: “She’s not completely convinced about the benefits of having it in the front room but she’s tolerant.
“We overlook each other’s weirdness.”
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The aquarium will go on show at Ryde library on the island on Tuesday and the museum has its own poo-et laureate who has written a special poo-em for the occasion.
It will then go on tour round the island and to the mainland by request.
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Former plumber Daniel said he wants to attract a celebrity to give a sample to add to the aquarium, saying: “That could be a real blow to the poo taboo.
“If people know of venues and would like the aquarium to come to their community, get in touch and we will do our best to get out to them.
“It’s amazing how poo brings people together, it’s something we all have in common even if we don’t talk about it."
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“When people visit the museum they don’t know what to expect but there’s so much laughter and fun, and people come out with a big smile on their faces.”
The museum opens on Good Friday and closes at the end of September.
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