ITALIAN POO MUSEUM

With poo swimming happily in all British rivers after decades of mismanagement and misuse of customers funds due to privatisation the time has come for a complete readjustment of the water industry. Gone are the days of foreign investors filling their coffers with clients hard earned cash and ignoring the dire need for modernisation. Modern methods are now becoming more prevalent with environmental requirements at the forefront. A classic example of waste being used in a novel way instead of just collecting and spraying on the fields to eventually ending up in rivers as happens in Britain. In Italy one of these novel ideas has shown how it can work. A museum, set in a medieval castle in the village of Castelbosco, was created by a local dairy farmer whose herd of 2,500 (some reports say 3,500) cows produce 30,000 litres (7,900 US gal) of milk a day, which is used to make Grana Padano cheese. The cows also produce around 100,000 kilograms (220,000 lb) of dung, which is transformed into methane, fertiliser for the fields, as well as raw material for plaster and bricks. The dung is used to generate power to run the operation. The museum has a symbiotic relationship with the farm and cheesemaking facility. It is an eccentric byproduct of the huge aggregation of cows and their prodigious output of cow manure.

Part of the mission of the Shit Museum is to make tangible contributions: ideas and exhibits are purposed to lead to objects, innovation and projects. Production is key to the transformation the museum’s creators envision. In its inaugural year, the museum invented and patented Merdacotta, which it says is “emblematic”. The product’s name is ‘baked shit’ in Italian. The material combines the twin principles of sustainability and transmutation, which are the museum’s baseline. It combines the twin materials of dried cow dung and Tuscan clay. The Merdacotta was used in “simple, clean rural shapes”, devoid of adornment and embodying “ancient principles”, thereby making the first tangible products bearing the Museo della Merda brand. These objects include bowls, flowerpots, jugs, mugs, plates, and tiles. In that sense, the use of materials gives voice to a Mcluhanesque view where “the medium is truly the message“. By their existence, the materials used eloquently imply that the material is their substance, and that shape is peripheral. “These are objects that redesign the cycle of nature in a virtuous circle, constituting essential elements of contemporary living.”At the Salone del Mobile in 2016, the museum’s “primordial products” made their debut. They garnered first prize in the Milano Design Award. Merdacotta is said to have a rugged look that enhances the hand crafting. When glazed and fired at 1,800 degrees,^[ it can be used to serve food and drink