The Museum of Bad Gifts is a celebration of bizarre objects, from ceramic clowns to cat nail clippings

An eclectic collection of items similar to the Island of misfit toys in Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is on display in a small gallery in Canada. But unlike the downtrodden toys from the 1964 television special, which eager girls and boys ultimately welcome on Christmas morning, these are gifts that have already been given – and rejected.

Bee “The Museum of Bad Gifts”, a week-long installation in Toronto Northern Contemporary Gallerydoomed gifts are mounted on the wall as works of art for visitors to puzzle over. Highlights include a framed fragment of cat food packaging, a stolen hotel bathrobe, a gingerbread man made from astroturf, a decanter made from a cow’s hoof, a CD-ROM containing the “Muppet Calendar” and a drinking glass decorated with the words “wine is win with an ‘e’ at the end!”

“Bad gifts are a universal experience,” says Shari Kasman, one of the exhibition’s curators Toronto star“Abby O’Brien. “People all over the world receive bad gifts, whether they are given out of obligation or out of misjudgment.”

Kasman and her co-curators – artists Stephanie Avery, Martin Reis And Sean Martindale– came up with this idea while brainstorming ways to use the gallery space during the period between Christmas and New Year’s, when loved ones around the world struggle with gifts they don’t want.

Before the show, the gallery presented a call for entriesexplaining that the definition of a bad gift is “completely subjective” and that “all bad gifts should be celebrated equally.” As Kasman tells CBC NewsMichael Smee: “One man’s bad gift is another man’s gem.”

Kasman says organizing the show presented unique challenges, and participants had their own moral dilemmas: What if a donor has since passed away? What if they are still alive and see their item in the gallery? But the show is billed as a celebration of bad gifts, rather than a condemnation of them.

“Whether given out of obligation, out of wild misjudgments of character or out of sheer apathy, bad gifts hold a special place in our hearts and in our homes,” the gallery writes about the exhibition. website. “We feel compelled to keep these gifts even if we don’t want them, like them or need them. The Museum of Bad Gifts will focus on bad gifts as we celebrate their glorious clumsiness, the chaos of Christmas consumption and the rituals of giving/receiving.”

The items are displayed alongside text descriptions on the wall written by the recipients, so museum visitors can understand the context in which each transaction took place. One participant accidentally sprayed pepper spray in her face after receiving it as a gift from her mother; the tube in question is in a resealable bag on the wall. Another explained that “my best friend in England and I like to send each other quirky gifts, [but] this bag of what I think are cat nails was perhaps a little too quirky for me.” A woman wrote that she had received a cookbook called Solo chef written for “widows and recently divorced fathers” on her 29th birthday.

“It came from one [discount] bin,” Kasman tells the newspaper Toronto star. “It includes recipes like ‘Meatloaf for One.'”

Some of the gifts on display are innocuous, such as a “preppy cheetah print phone bag” given to someone who “doesn’t really care about typical girly things.” Context appears to be very important with such items, and they are often appreciated when exchanged between acquaintances. But what about when they come from close friends or family members?

Eva Stachniak, who attended the show, is a local writer who loves literature, but she has been given generic texts that have the vibe of, “Oh, any book is good,” as she tells it. Toronto today‘s Gabe Oatley. “It’s the sadness that comes from the fact that someone you thought knew you really has no idea who you are.”

But the bad gifts themselves are only part of the show. At the wall of bad gift drawingsvisitors are instructed to draw and describe the worst items they received, including a “ceramic clown” and “the doll I don’t like.” They can also add or “reimagine” their own bad gifts to a “collaborative bad gift sculpture” using ribbons, tape and other craft supplies.

“There are bad gifts that are so bad they are good,” says sculptor Andy Fischer. “Those are the things I enjoy the most.” As CBC News reports, Fischer has “reimagined” a Cabbage Patch doll, gifted by a friend who constructed it from “creepily found parts.”

Admission is free, but like a traditional gallery show, some items, including the bag of cat nails, will be auctioned off, according to the auction. Global news“Lexy Benedict. Proceeds will go to the Toronto-based company Daily Bread Food Bank.

“The Museum of Bad Gifts‘ is on view at the Northern Contemporary Gallery in Toronto until January 5, 2025.