英国开了一家国家便便博物馆

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

世界上什么样的博物馆都有，有收藏烂艺术、方便面、还有毛发的。如今，英格兰南部又有了一间致力于收集粪便的博物馆。

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.

“国家便便博物馆”(National Poo Museum)今年三月在英国桑当的怀特岛动物园(Isle of Wright Zoo)开幕，由名叫埃克莱斯顿‧乔治(Eccleston George)的艺术家团体中的几个成员所创立。该团体经常为学校与动物园制作互动式展览，而创馆初衷是为了找个能给成员带来一点收入的新项目。这是他们的成员丹尼尔‧罗伯茨(Daniel Roberts)的主意，起因于他曾在瑞典的乡间小路上散步时，看到的一些神秘的动物粪便。

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

“大家都停下脚步来猜想这是哪种便便，”罗伯茨说。“结果是山猫的。”

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.

罗伯茨说，同伴们着迷的模样触动了他。他表示：“大家都觉得大便很恶心，却又无法不对它感到好奇。”国家便便博物馆于焉诞生。

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.

不过这间博物馆比较像是一个展览，只占了动物园里一个厅的空间，开放时间到夏季结束为止。接下它会巡回各地展出。馆内展示了20种不同动物的粪便样本，包括鸽子、猫鼬，还有狮子。每个样本都固定在透明树脂球里，可以按钮点亮灯光来观看。

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.

各个样本在用这种方式保存之前，都要先干燥处理。鸟屎干得很快，牛粪团要一周才能彻底干燥，狮子粪则要两周时间。

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

在那些最引人入胜的样本当中，有一个来自银鸥的粪便，里面缠着一个白色物体。

“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.”

“那个白色的东西是塑胶袋残余，”来自埃克莱斯顿‧乔治的艺术家奈吉尔‧乔治(Nigel George)表示。“这给我们讲了个故事，说明人类对一个地方的生态会造成什么影响。”

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

除了展出其他颇有裨益的排泄物趣闻，博物馆也特别介绍了肠癌的相关资讯，以及保持下水道管线畅通的重要性。

“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.”

“孩子们和这个地方产生了很大的共鸣，”这个艺术团体另一名成员比尔‧凯恩(Bill Cane)表示。“便便表情符号现在超火，我们的博物馆似乎搭上了顺风车。”

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

凯恩表示，有个孩子来参观的时候，手里还真抓着一个便便表情符号的玩偶。