Image: courtesy of Planet Word
That words hold massive power to shape thoughts has long been known but Washington D.C. is now poised to preserve and highlight the importance of written word with a brand new museum.
Named Planet Word the museum is dedicated to words in all forms and is set to open on May 31, 2020, located in the historic Franklin School building on 13th Street Northwest D.C.
Academic Ann Friedman is the force behind the museum that has been designed and built to “bring language to life”.
Visitors will be able to engage with multiple dimensions of language arts and celebrate the brilliance of words and their contribution to understanding of the human nature.
The museum will feature 11 galleries that promise to serve visitors of all ages to provide experiences that overcome language barriers.
For example, one place features Where Do Words Come From?
The answer comes from a 41-foot-wide interactive wall displaying words and traces history of English language words.
“I hope that when people leave Planet Word that they will have a new empathy for the people who don’t sound like them, we have a lot of power that our words give us. Let’s use it bring people together and not to divide us” says Friedman, founder and CEO of the museum.
Word puzzles and poetry will be other major attractions as will be a gift shop.
Like many other Washington museums, admission would be free for visitors.
As Michael Whitmore, the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, once remarked to me, “We are all curators of our words from the day we’re born,” Friedman notes.
“We are all born collectors of this one thing: Words. But those words, I would argue, have been the overlooked, disregarded, underappreciated artifacts of our lives.
“But no longer. Planet Word is about to change all that,” she adds in a blog.
