Prison tattoo guns, Fake IDs and bullet-proof backpacks — New York City’s Mmuseumm helps visitors make sense of the madness of modern society through its curated selection of cultural ephemera.

“Recent years have certainly been alive with beauty and horror, great invention and destruction,” explains the anonymous recorded voice that guides visitors through New York’s City’s Mmuseumm. “And the artefacts of today’s world found between the cracks of our communities are the physical embodiment of contemporary humanity.”

Nestled in an alley in Lower Manhattan, Mmuseumm is perhaps the world’s smallest museum. The converted elevator shaft plays host to a rotating selection of cultural flotsam and jetsam, curated to help viewers make sense of the mystery and madness of life today.

Objects on display have varied from fake IDs and NYC tip jars to items Dr. Robert Insley has removed from his patients in Chatham, Massachusetts and Stefan Ruiz’s collection of prison-made tools and artwork.

“Intimate illustrations, honest proof… contemporary artefacts,” according to our invisible telephone guide. “What we consider our cultural DNA, to more richly illustrate humanise and understand this modern world.”

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to make sure you never miss another Huck short film.

Find out more about Mmuseumm, 4 Cortlandt Alley, b/t Franklin St & White St, New York City.

Film by Nicolas Heller – @NuevaYorkNico. Music by Falside.

Latest on Huck

Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities
Photography

Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities

New exhibition, ‘Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography’ interrogates the use of photography as a tool of objectification and subjugation.

Written by: Miss Rosen

My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps
Photography

My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps

After a car crash that saw Magnum photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa hospitalised, his sister ran away from their home in South Africa. His new photobook, I Carry Her Photo With Me, documents his journey in search of her.

Written by: Lindokuhle Sobekwa

Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene
Photography

Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene

New photobook, ‘Epicly Later’d’ is a lucid survey of the early naughties New York skate scene and its party culture.

Written by: Isaac Muk

Did we create a generation of prudes?
Culture

Did we create a generation of prudes?

Has the crushing of ‘teen’ entertainment and our failure to represent the full breadth of adolescent experience produced generation Zzz? Emma Garland investigates.

Written by: Emma Garland

How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race
Photography

How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race

Photographer R. Perry Flowers documented the 2023 edition of the Winter Death Race and talked through the experience in Huck 81.

Written by: Josh Jones

An epic portrait of 20th Century America
Photography

An epic portrait of 20th Century America

‘Al Satterwhite: A Retrospective’ brings together scenes from this storied chapter of American life, when long form reportage was the hallmark of legacy media.

Written by: Miss Rosen

Sign up to our newsletter

Issue 81: The more than a game issue

Buy it now