Photos courtesy of The Tiny Museum Outside 706 Burwood Terrace in Highland Park, a single display case hosts The Tiny @ 706. It’s a micro-museum featuring several small exhibits reflecting current issues — from Black Lives Matter to COVID-19 — all curated by the museum’s founder, Naama Haviv.
During a walk with her husband, Haviv, who works as director of community engagement at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, saw an empty display case curbside and became inspired. She received a display case as a birthday present from her husband in May and launched the offbeat museum on July 3.
Haviv, who studied history and genocide studies in undergraduate and graduate school, said she thinks of the exhibits as “less of an expression of art and more of an expression of history.”
Among the exhibits are “My White Fragility,” featuring print stories from white cisgender women’s experiences with white privilege and racism, alongside embroideries by Haviv in the display case. “Last Call” features items (or reconstructed receipts of items) purchased “just before we realized the world had changed completely,” Haviv said. They include lipstick and a pair of shoes she bought on March 9, four days before quarantine.
“These are artifacts of a moment that we’re in,” Haviv said. “I can’t stop thinking about how completely different our world is right now. The challenge is how do we talk about this moment in a way that invites some introspection and interrogation without it feeling preachy?”
Haviv’s “gift shop” has rocks with googly eyes on them called Dwaynes, after Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which are available for “adoption,” and “think of something beautiful” stickers and postcards from a local anonymous artist. Sometimes, little animal figures they called “hedgehugs” are available. Gifts are free. Donations to a Black Lives Matter organization are suggested.
The Dwaynes also serve as imprecise attendance counters. Haviv estimated that at least 40 people have visited, because she has made from 50 to 70 Dwaynes, and sometimes families with kids will take more than one. She also hopes news of the Dwaynes will reach their namesake.
“Maybe someday someone who knows The Rock will show him that I did this,” she said. “And he will come adopt a Dwayne and we will be best friends, as I know we are fated to be.”
Part of the magic of the museum is its interactivity. Since its opening, visitors have left items on top of the display case ranging from a tiny sombrero and a “little squirrel-chipmunk thing,” to a grasshopper and a piece of obsidian. Haviv calls them “guardians,” and recently featured the squirrel-chipmunk as the museum’s first “Employee of the Month.”
Soon after, Haviv announced her intention to add eyes to little glass pebbles “and call them all Ira,” named after American public radio personality Ira Glass. Someone, she posted on Facebook, left a “trail of Iras” for them at the museum. And a local artist contacted her about displaying some of his work. If that happens, Haviv said she imagined a tiny, socially distant art opening with tiny toothpick appetizers.
“It’s nice when you can create something and then it takes on a life of its own and spirals out from what you need into what other people need,” she said. “[The movie] ‘Field of Dreams’ taught me if I built it, people would come.”
The Tiny @ 706 is at 706 Burwood Terrace in northeast Los Angeles. Photos of the exhibits are available on Instagram here. Think of Something Beautiful project can be found here.
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