For lovers of off-the-beaten-path art experiences, The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History is catnip.

Located in the parlor of a 19th-century cottage on Mandeville Street, the mini museum is absolutely chockablock with weird dioramas, surreal shadow boxes, dada junk sculpture and orphan antique toys. It’s a sanctuary, where plastic dentures, bleached bird bones, tiny plastic Barbie shoes and innumerable other odds and ends have all somehow found homes.

To visit the place is an intimate, unpretentious experience with a funky, folksy tone, perfectly befitting downtown New Orleans. Flying far below the radar, the attraction is an ideal destination for art excursions by savvy tourists and locals alike.

Some of the artworks in the museum are brilliant. Check out the swamped Sewerage & Water Board diorama, the gumball machine filled with plastic bridegrooms from bygone wedding cakes, and the elegant high-heeled pump made from real rodent skin.

A dried rat is turned into a high-heeled shoe by Patty Burns at the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

Truth be told, some of the other artworks in the ensemble are just messy, jumbled labors of love. But here’s the thing, everything plays a role in the charming overall effect.

Predictably, perhaps, planning a visit to the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History can be perplexing. First of all, it’s not in the Bywater, it’s located in the Marigny. There’s not a ton of foot traffic, because, well, it’s only open for 2 hours and 31 minutes each Sunday afternoon — from 3 p.m. to 5:31 p.m., precisely.

at the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

Patty Burns, who founded the Bywater Museum in 2019, said she likes absurdly exacting numbers, because they are “intriguing though their oddness.” Burns, an artist and former English professor at Tulane University, said she envisioned the museum as “an engagement with material and the unconscious, the embodiment of dreams and storytelling.”

The petit museum used to be in a second-story attic space above the Aquarium art gallery on Montegut Street — in the Bywater neighborhood, hence the name. When Burns decided to leave the old spot in 2021, her friend and fellow artist Jennifer Blow offered the front of her house as the new location.

The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History photographed in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

The two women instantly became co-curators. Blow knew something about the art world already, since she managed the popular Michalopoulos Gallery in the French Quarter for almost 20 years. She and Burns decided to keep the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History’s original name … for discontinuity’s sake.

Dec. 7 is going to be a big day at the museum, when an estimated 35 artists will debut new creations during the annual diorama contest.

Any adult or child can enter. All you have to do is build a small, boxed scene of some sort and drop it off at the museum by 8 p.m. Dec. 5.

“We’re inspired by people who just show up and bring a diorama,” Blow said. “We never know what we’re going to get.”

A diorama that won the 2023 completion titled, "Doctor Tanzler and the Girl Whose Name was Miracle," by Pandora and Jack Mudlark, photographed at the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History will even help supply materials to make your masterpiece, in case you don’t have enough random knickknacks and geegaws of your own. There will be cash prizes awarded in several categories. First place wins $77.94, Burns said. Originally, first place was $73, but it’s gone up $1.11 each year since.

The yearly diorama contest fuels the museum’s collection. Participating artists often loan or donate their works to the permanent display. Nothing is rejected. If you ever wanted to see your art in a museum, now’s your chance.

Dioramas adorn the walls of the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

Those creators who show their work in there are more than just exhibitors, they are collaborators. Because the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History isn’t just a museum, it’s a meta artwork all its own.

The legendary Joseph Cornell was the all-time champion of arranging mismatched objects in boxes to create compelling collisions of thought. The Bywater Museum is like a giant Cornell box stuffed with scores of smaller Cornell boxes. It’s an echo chamber of juxtaposition, an artistic example of hive mentality, a marvelous, shared vision between Blow, Burns and anybody else who wants to be a part of it.

A diorama with dolls photographed at the Bywater Museum of Unnatural History in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER

Visitors to the museum will agree that its whole vibe is very harmonious with New Orleans’ eccentricities. The Bywater Museum belongs here like beads in the trees, like mirliton casserole, like eternally broken traffic lights, little green lizards and the sound of a tuba in the distance.

The Bywater Museum of Unnatural History is located at 921 Mandeville Street. Admission is free. Regular hours are from 3 p.m. to 5:31 p.m. each Sunday, or by appointment. The annual diorama contest takes place from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Dec. 7, with prize winners announced at 6:37 p.m. Check the website for contest rules and further details.

Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate.com. Follow him on Instagram at dougmaccash, on Twitter at Doug MacCash* **and on Facebook atDouglas James MacCash. *