Museum of future celebrates past

Museum researchers will be taking a closer look at films such as "Mission to Mars" Keystone

The "House of Elsewhere" - the world's only museum dedicated exclusively to science fiction - is celebrating its 25th anniversary on May 1.

Located in Yverdon-les-Bains on the southern shore of Lake Neuchatel, the museum houses tens of thousands of artefacts relating to “science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys”.

Among the collection are about 40,000 books in 40 languages, a lending library, as well as illustrations, paintings, posters, recordings, films and games.

As part of the silver jubilee celebrations, the House of Elsewhere is staging a special exhibition – which on ends August 26 – entitled, “Hybrid Metal”, highlighting the works of the American sculptor, Arik F. Palmer.

The European Space Agency recently commissioned the museum to do a study of the technologies found in science fiction literature, hoping to turn fiction to fact.

The goal of the project, called “Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications Study”, is to extract the most interesting inventions related to astronautics or space travel.

The leaders of the project are creating an inventory, which will eventually be made available on the Internet and could be the basis for a new museum exhibition.

swissinfo