Museum of Feelings at Brookfield Place

New York City is home to dozens  of museums, many of which are internationally known. NY.com says there are 83 museums in total among the 5 boroughs and 32 museums  are in Manhattan. New-York Historical Society (1804) is the oldest museum in New York, and Museum of Feelings is the youngest- it was open  was open  on 25 of November this year. The museum is free and lines are long, but if you think you have time to visit it- think twice- museum will work till December 15  2015.


The new museum is housed  in the 5,300-square-foot portable building with shifting colored lights projected on its white walls. This building    is located  two blocks from the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on a plaza facing the Hudson ., at Brookfield Place. The Museum of Feelings markets itself   as "the first museum that reacts to emotions -- and turns them into art."
Its facade changes color with New York City’s mood using social media and real-time data from sources like the New York Stock Exchange, local news, weather reports and flight delays.

Inside the museum, words on the wall introduce us to the project: “Open up to an emotional journey. Use your eyes, ears, fingers, imagination, soul and nose. . . . . Twist your inner muse to ‘on.’ Be Brave, Beautiful, Colorful, Vulnerable.”
There are five rooms  in the museum called “experience zones”.   Each is named after a feeling and matching scent profile. The rooms are called, in order, Optimistic, Joyful, Invigorated, Exhilarated and Calm.

In the   first room,   you refract colorful light from a glittery piece of cardboard.Second room has    a forest of green LED vines dangling from above,the third one is  a disco lounge where the floor is a vibrating; 
a hall of mirrors with kaleidoscopic images controlled by users swiping a touch screen is a fourth room  and the  color therapy room,   a warm purple globe with cushy carpet and a fog machine is the fifth one. 

First Room

First room



Second Room











Second Room







Third room

 

 The exhibit is sponsored by Glade, the scent manufacturer. Each room has a  Glade scent to encourage visitors to connect special experiences with smells. The sense of smell is closely linked with memory, probably more so than any of our other senses.  Smell can act as  trigger in recalling a long-forgotten event or experience.  Marcel Proust, in his ‘Remembrance of all Things Past’, wrote that a bite of a madeleine vividly recalled childhood memories of his aunt giving him the very same cake before going to mass on a Sunday.
Visitors are invited to share their emotions by way of selfies taken inside a kaleidoscope "controlled by feelings."  Guests can also create a MoodLens, which uses individual biometric data like Galvanic Skin Response, the weather, and your pulse rate, to create an “emotional selfie.”   You can try it out online, too.
I visited this museum several days go.  It was in the middle of a work day  and the line was long.  Waited in line for about an 30 minutes. If I had to wait any longer then the museum really isn't worth the wait time. The best thing about the museum that it is free. But from my view  the Winter garden in  Brookfield Place   few steps from the museum is much better.