Treasury - Harry Potter's Universe

"Treasury - Harry Potter's Universe" is the name of an (unauthorised?) exhibition at the Funen Art Museum in Odense, Denmark. The exhibition consists of Harry Potter related items borrowed from different museums, libraries, schools and private collectors.

When first I heard about the exhibition, I thought, "Oh, no! This can't be good." I had imagined to see a lot of bric-a-brac and stuffed animals from the museum vault that had little or nothing to do with Harry Potter, but to be honest I was pleasantly surprised.

 The exhibition consisted of three small rooms called "Professor Snape's potion workshop", "The Hogwart's Hall" and "The Forbidden Forest". The first room, the potion workshop, seemed rather empty, as there were only two display cases, one with different potions and potion remedies, the other with a bezoar, floo powder and dead animals in formaldehyde. Although the items were few, they were still pretty interesting.

The next room, "The Hogwart's Hall", was the biggest. Here you could see a lot of different items on display connected to the story of Harry Potter. There was a Nimbus 2000 broom, the wands of Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore and Voldemort, the Golden Snitch, The Philosopher's Stone, the head from HP3, the Mirror of Erised (although it didn't work properly), the Marauder's Map, different Weasley Wizard Wheezes products, Hermione's timetable, Lily Potter's letter to Sirius Black and a lot more.

 Most of the stuff had no doubt been bought in either "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" at Universal Orlando or at the "Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter", but still it was quite interesting and there was a lot to see.

 The last room, the smallest, was "The Forbidden Forest". Here you'd find the stuffed animals that I had expected to see! A stuffed owl was said to be Hedwig, a rat was Scabbers (although it had all its toes), Pigwidgeon and Mrs. Norris were there as well and a dragon egg.

All in all I enjoyed the experience, especially the Hogwart's Hall, but Snape's workshop was okay, too. I also liked that "Hedwig's Theme" (played on harp) could be heard in every room. Very nice. The exhibition was too small, though, as you could hardly use half an hour there, so it was a good thing that the £5 entrance ticket provided access to the rest of the museum as well. That way I came to see four exhibitions of contemporary art, too!

"Treasure - Harry Potter's Universe" is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (except Mondays) and if you live in Denmark, I would recommend that you go see it, because let's face it. Denmark loves Harry Potter, but Harry Potter doesn't love Denmark. Up until now only the Weasley twins (Phelps twins) have graced our capital Copenhagen with their presence at the Danish premiere of Harry Potter 7, part 1 and then J. K. Rowling visited the Danish "Harry Potter capital" Odense when she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award. Both visits were back in 2010. In my opinion, there is no way that the official "Harry Potter - The Exhibition" is ever going to reach Denmark, so the "Treasury - Harry Potter Universe" at the Funen Art Museum is probably the closest we'll get. The exhibition runs until December 2nd, 2012.