英國開了一家國家便便博物館

There are museums devoted to pretty much everything: bad art, instant ramen, hair. Now there is a museum in southern England devoted to excrement.

世界上什麼樣的博物館都有，有收藏爛藝術、方便麪、還有毛髮的。如今，英格蘭南部又有了一間致力於收集糞便的博物館。

The National Poo Museum, which opened in March at the Isle of Wight Zoo in Sandown, was created by a small group of artists from a collective called Eccleston George. The group, which usually makes interactive exhibits for schools and zoos, was looking for a new project that could generate a trickle of income for its artists. The idea for the museum originated when a member, Daniel Roberts, was walking on a country path in Sweden and happened upon some mysterious animal droppings.

“國家便便博物館”(National Poo Museum)今年三月在英國桑當的懷特島動物園(Isle of Wright Zoo)開幕，由名叫埃克萊斯頓‧喬治(Eccleston George)的藝術家團體中的幾個成員所創立。該團體經常爲學校與動物園製作互動式展覽，而創館初衷是爲了找個能給成員帶來一點收入的新項目。這是他們的成員丹尼爾‧羅伯茨(Daniel Roberts)的主意，起因於他曾在瑞典的鄉間小路上散步時，看到的一些神祕的動物糞便。

“Everyone stopped in their tracks to wonder what sort of poo it was,” Mr. Roberts said. “It ended up being from a lynx.”

“大家都停下腳步來猜想這是哪種便便，”羅伯茨說。“結果是山貓的。”

He was struck, he said, by how intrigued his companions were. “People are disgusted by poo, but there’s also this fascination with it,” he said. And so the National Poo Museum was born.

羅伯茨說，同伴們着迷的模樣觸動了他。他表示：“大家都覺得大便很噁心，卻又無法不對它感到好奇。”國家便便博物館於焉誕生。

It is more of an exhibit than a museum, occupying a single room at the zoo, where it will be open until the end of the summer; after that, it will go on tour. It features 20 examples of feces from different animals, including pigeon, meerkat and lion. Each sample is suspended in a sphere of clear resin that can be illuminated with the touch of a button.

不過這間博物館比較像是一個展覽，只佔了動物園裏一個廳的空間，開放時間到夏季結束爲止。接下它會巡迴各地展出。館內展示了20種不同動物的糞便樣本，包括鴿子、貓鼬，還有獅子。每個樣本都固定在透明樹脂球裏，可以按鈕點亮燈光來觀看。

Before it is preserved this way, each sample must be dried. The bird droppings dried quickly, but a cowpat took about a week to dry out and the lion feces almost two weeks.

各個樣本在用這種方式保存之前，都要先乾燥處理。鳥屎乾得很快，牛糞團要一週才能徹底乾燥，獅子糞則要兩週時間。

One of the more interesting samples, from a herring gull, has a white object tangled in it.

在那些最引人入勝的樣本當中，有一個來自銀鷗的糞便，裏面纏着一個白色物體。

“The white part is the remnant of a plastic bag,” said Nigel George, one of the Eccleston George artists. “This tells a story of what human beings are doing to the ecology of a place.”

“那個白色的東西是塑膠袋殘餘，”來自埃克萊斯頓‧喬治的藝術家奈吉爾‧喬治(Nigel George)表示。“這給我們講了個故事，說明人類對一個地方的生態會造成什麼影響。”

The museum also features information on bowel cancer and the importance of keeping sewer pipes unblocked and unclogged, among other helpful tidbits about feces.

除了展出其他頗有裨益的排泄物趣聞，博物館也特別介紹了腸癌的相關資訊，以及保持下水道管線暢通的重要性。

“It’s had a huge resonance with kids,” said Bill Cane, another member of the collective. “The poop emoji is super popular now, and it seems to be riding quite a bit on that.”

“孩子們和這個地方產生了很大的共鳴，”這個藝術團體另一名成員比爾‧凱恩(Bill Cane)表示。“便便表情符號現在超火，我們的博物館似乎搭上了順風車。”

In fact, Mr. Cane said, one of the children who visited the exhibit came clutching a plush-toy poop emoji.

凱恩表示，有個孩子來參觀的時候，手裏還真抓着一個便便表情符號的玩偶。