Brave New Hoxton – Hackney children curate Museum of the Future at the Hundred Years Gallery

Some exhibits from the Museum of the Future. Photograph: Ministry of Stories

Novelists, illustrators and others with overactive imaginations have long concocted visions of future Londons – the dystopias of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World immediately spring to mind – so perhaps it’s not surprising children are now doing the same.

Sci-fi, futurology and fantasy lend themselves well to a city that breaks boundaries in fashion, architecture and the like, and now a “museum of the future” is to be added to the many institutions in the capital displaying objects from the far distant past.

The “museum” is in fact a temporary exhibition at the Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton, and it will introduce visitors to possible sights, sounds, threats and artefacts from the future.

Curated and created entirely by children, whose naturally overactive imaginations mean they probably needed no encouragement, it is the brainchild of charity Ministry of Stories.

It features space-football and “evil washing machines”, and there will be five zones, each exploring a different theme including “creature attack,” natural disasters and time travel.

All of stories in the exhibition were penned by Hoxton children aged 8-12, who have been working with Ministry of Stories in its Thursday and Saturday out-of-school groups.

Hoxton Museum of the Future will open to the public on Saturday 30 July (11am-5pm) and Sunday 31 July (11am – 3pm).

Imagine what Samuel Pepys might make of Pokemon Go and you will have some idea of how our city in four hundred years’ time might look to us today.

Catch the show soon before it’s a thing of the past.

Museum of the Future
30 – 31 July
Hundred Years Gallery
13 Pearson Street
E2 8JD