Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima are putting their fantastic design work on show in a new exhibition called ‘House of MinaLima’. That means The Daily Prophet, the Marauder’s Map, the Harry Potter Undesirable No 1 poster, the cover of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Hogwarts Express tickets, Gilderoy Lockhart’s bestsellers and Harry Potter’s acceptance letter…they’ll all be there.
They just needed to find the perfect place. Somewhere magical, somewhere quaint. Somewhere befitting an exhibition of Harry Potter design.
Turns out the perfect place is 26 Greek Street in the West End of London. It’s a four-storey, higgledy-piggledy, ramshackle house between theatres that looks like it could have appeared, for a moment, in Diagon Alley.
‘We knew straight away that it was the right place for us,’ Eduardo says. ‘We cancelled all our other viewings and told the landlord we’d take it. It’s like Grimmauld Place in there, with narrow staircases, wonky walls and low ceilings.’
‘We wanted it to feel like it could have been there forever, like a museum,’ Mira adds. ‘And as though it could disappear between the other buildings. By the time you reach the top floor, you can touch the ceiling. It’s like Harry’s cupboard under the stairs, but at the top of the building.’
The top two floors will be wall-to-wall with Harry Potter limited edition prints and original props from the films, including a cascading display of Hogwarts acceptance letters trying to get to Harry at number four, Privet Drive. The first floor of the exhibition will hold some of MinaLima’s other beautiful works of art, from their Collective Nouns prints to other published book illustrations.
Mira and Eduardo recently finished working on the film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We rather hope that their graphic designs from the film will feature at some point in the exhibition as well. We’ll just have to keep visiting the House, which will be open every day until early next year.
‘House of MinaLima’ is just around the corner from the Palace Theatre, where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two will be staged, and opens its doors to the public on Friday 3 June 2016. Entry is free and unticketed.