Empathy Museum facts for kids
The Empathy Museum is a special kind of museum that started in 2015. It's not a building you visit every day. Instead, it's a collection of unique art installations that travel around the world.
Its main goal is to help you understand what it's like to be someone else. It does this by sharing real stories and encouraging people to talk. The museum believes that by understanding others, we can better deal with big problems like unfairness or disagreements. Since 2018, they also have a weekly podcast called A Mile in My Shoes.
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About the Empathy Museum
The Empathy Museum was created by philosopher Roman Krznaric. It is led by artist Clare Patey.
This museum doesn't have a fixed home. Its projects are designed to be temporary. They travel to different places all over the world. The main offices for the Empathy Museum are in London, United Kingdom.
Listen to A Mile in My Shoes Podcast
In May 2018, the Empathy Museum began a weekly podcast called A Mile in My Shoes. This podcast shares true stories from people's lives around the world. It helps listeners hear about different experiences.
Exciting Projects
The Empathy Museum has created several interesting projects. Each one helps you step into someone else's shoes.
A Thousand and One Books
A Thousand and One Books is a special library. It has 1001 books collected from many different people. Each book was given by "someone who loves that book and thinks that other people might love it too."
Famous people like Ian McKellen and Chris O'Dowd have donated books. You can borrow a book from this library. But instead of returning it, you pass it on to someone else. This project has been shown at the London International Festival of Theatre in 2016. It also appeared at the Krasnoyarsk Book Culture Fair in 2016.
Human Library
The Human Library is a library where you borrow a person instead of a book. You can talk with them and hear their life story. These "Living Books" share their experiences with visitors.
Each Human Library focuses on a different topic. These topics can include fashion, food, home, or age. This project has been presented in London at places like SOAS (2015) and the Whitechapel Gallery (2015). It also visited the Perth Writers Festival in Perth, Western Australia (2016).
A Mile in My Shoes
A Mile in My Shoes is a traveling "shoe shop." It has over 350 pairs of shoes. Each pair comes with an audio story. Visitors can swap their own shoes for a pair from the museum's collection. As they walk, they listen to the shoe owner's story through headphones. This helps them imagine what it's like to live that person's life.
The museum collects new stories and shoes in each place it visits. Sometimes, the project focuses on certain themes. For example, they have collected stories from:
- People who moved to England (with London's Migration Museum, 2018).
- Health workers in the UK (for the Health Foundation, 2018).
- Young people in Scotland (with National Theatre Scotland, 2019).
- People who came to the UK as refugees (with Choose Love, 2019).
- Stories connected to water (with Arts Centre Melbourne, 2020).
Stories have been collected in many languages. These include English, French, German, and Portuguese.
A Mile in My Shoes has traveled widely. It has been shown across England and in countries like Belgium (2017), Australia (2017, 2019), and the USA (2018). More recently, it visited Italy (2021) and Germany (2021).
From Where I'm Standing
From Where I'm Standing shows what life was like in London in 2020. It uses outdoor photos and audio stories. This project celebrates 34 amazing people. They include a midwife, a supermarket worker, and an anaesthetist. The exhibit was displayed in London at Sceaux Gardens Estate, Peckham, and Dalberg Road, Brixton.
