Witches, wizards and magical beasts come alive at the Ohio Valley Museum of Discovery’s “Harry Potter’s World.”
The event includes a traveling panel exhibit, “Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance, Science, Magic and Medicine,” produced by the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and has been featured at OVMD every Saturday since Aug. 3. The traveling panel explores the influences Renaissance traditions had on Harry Potter.
There is a variety of live programming at the event as well, including potions, fortune telling and wand making. Guests from different departments of Ohio University, including biology and physics, will also attend the event and give demonstrations.
Christie Truly, the museum’s treasurer and volunteer coordinator, said the museum has had about 100 people attend the event each Saturday.
“We were unsure because we’ve never been open before in the summer, but the turnout has been really good,” Truly said.
Truly added that the event’s success can be owed to the range of events and exhibits offered.
“People can connect to different things,” she said. “For ‘Harry Potter,’ once we got the exhibit, we built programming around the exhibit and made it for all ages.”
Sara Hartman, the museum president, said that the museum’s status as a nonprofit allowed it to present the exhibit rent-free.
“It’s good because we’re a nonprofit and now all we’re doing is asking for people coming to make donations,” Hartman said.
Hartman even participated in the fun one weekend by dressing up as Professor Trelawney, a professor of Divination in Harry Potter, and read people’s fortunes.
“It was great and I had a really fun costume,” she said.
Hartman said the programming has also included magic shows and a magical creatures class and that the museum really tries to involve not just younger kids but older students and their parents.
“Everyone loves Harry Potter,” she said. “They think of it as a certain age group but I think it’s universal.”
Event coordinators are also assisted by about seven or eight volunteers who normally come from the education or medical programs at OU.
“We’re always looking for volunteers,” Truly said. “If people have ideas, regardless of their major, we can usually find a way to bring them to life.”
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