Artis Micropia, the museum that displays the unseen world

Author: Micropia
Via: The Invisible World

Museum recommended by Mick Lorusso from the USA / Italy, collaborator of Arttextum’s Replicación

You can’t see them, but they’re here.
They are on you. In you. And you’ve got more than a hundred thousand billion of them.
They’re with you when you eat, when you breathe, when you kiss.
They are everywhere. On your hands. And in your belly.
And they meddle in everything.
They shape your world:
what you smell, and what you taste;
whether you get sick, or get better.
They can save us or destroy us.
Microbes: the smallest and most powerful organisms on our planet.
We know very little about them,
but can learn so much from them.
About our health, alternative energy sources, and much more.
When you look from really close,
a new world is revealed to you.
More beautiful and spectacular than you could ever have imagined.
Welcome to Micropia.
The only museum of microbes, in the centre of Amsterdam.

It has taken over twelve years for the idea of Micropia to become a reality and for the museum to open its doors. The process has involved the close collaboration of many parties.

The history of Micropia began when Haig Balian was appointed director of Artis in 2003. He drew up a wide-ranging blueprint for the Artis of the 21st century, encompassing three core principles: more space for animals; more attention to learning about the natural world and a central focus on the Artis heritage. Balian’s children grew up as the Artis blueprint developed. As adolescents, they had their first romances, experienced their first kiss. But what actually happens when we kiss? The mouth is the entrance to the gastrointestinal tract, but is also the habitat of hundreds of thousands of families of bacteria. There are also the complex flora exchanged during a kiss. The idea of Micropia was born.