Maison d’Ailleurs, or the House of Elsewhere, is Europe’s only public science-fiction museum. Created in 1976, when French sci-fi buff Pierre Versin donated his collection of tens of thousands of SF books to the Swiss spa town of Yverdon-les-Bains, just north of Lausanne, on the condition that it be made available for public viewing, the museum regularly hold two to three temporary exhibits a year. Here are the currently scheduled exhibits:
What: Entropia: The art of Christian Lorenz Scheurer
When: Now through Sept. 23, 2007
Swiss-born sci-fi artist Scheurer creates images of imaginary civilizations. His work “helps us discover new realms,” says the museum’s curator, Patrick Gyger. The exhibit includes 200 sketches and digital paintings and a quirky “stamp collection” from an imaginary planet, as well as the digital paintings and conceptual otherworlds he has created in pencil, collage and more traditional media for movie classics like The Matrix, The Day After Tomorrow, The Fifth Element and Final Fantasy.
What: A show on horror and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft
When: October 2007
What: A new permanent wing dedicated to Jules Verne
When: Planned for 2008
For more information, visit www.ailleurs.ch.