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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

This museum allows you to walk on ceilings and bend reality

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KABEER YOUSUF -




Majority of museums are usually dedicated as places for collecting artifacts that have cultural, historic or scientific values — a home where archaic and bucolic objects that bear some historical relevance are kept and made accessible to the public.


Yet one museum in Muscat has been giving the public a different experience — the kind that put into the test their grasp of reality.


Welcome to the Museum of Illusions located in the new expansion of Muscat Grand Mall in Atrium 2. The first museum of its kind in the MiddleEast region, it’s a place where visitors are taken into a journey of visual and sensory deception.


With more than 70 exhibits based on science, mathematics, biology, and psychology, the museum is both a learning ground and a challenge arena for the brain.


Other than the exhibits, however, the ones that kept people talking are the illusion rooms such as the Tilted Room, which lets visitors see if they can manage to walk on a slanted floor and defy gravity.


The Infinity Room is a room of mirrors with one fully reflective mirror and one partially reflective mirror. The one-way mirror reflects an image back onto the fully reflective mirror in a recursive manner. It creates a series of infinite reflections.


In the Ames Room, people or objects appear to grow or shrink when moving from one corner to the other. The Up-side-down room creates the illusion that visitors are walking all over, including on the ceiling.


There are also various illusions in which objects appear to be different sizes when in fact they are the same. For example, the Jastrow Illusion makes the bottom shape appear larger than the top shape.


“The Museum not only makes you forget the real world for the time you spend here but gives you refreshing energy that you carry with you,” said Madiha Javed, Marketing & Sales Manager of Museum of Illusions Muscat.


“This 21st Century Museum is loved by tourists, local nationals and residents as well as attracts huge numbers of school students because its fun yet deeply educational and unlike other museums, visitors can run, scream, touch exhibits, and take as many photos as they want and feel a part of the Illusions and gather some mind-blowing content for Instagram and Facebook stories,” she said.


The Museum of Illusions has proven to enrich the tourism and culture attraction in Muscat.


“In light of the new demands in the market today, the Museum of Illusions has made the global concept of a museum a new and attractive Instagram-worthy place, giving firsthand experience to the visitors by making it an interactive, entertaining, and educational playhouse for families and friends”, shared Marli, the museum manager.


The museum is open from 10 am to 10 pm every day including the public holidays.



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