Short description of topic:
Mission Masterpiece was the first children’s exhibition in the Rijksmuseum. It was centered around conservation and science and co-created with Nemo Science Museum. In this salon we will discuss the challenges and learnings we encountered when creating this interdisciplinary exhibition.
Why is this important to you?
Families and children make up more than a quarter of the total visitors of the Rijksmuseum. Yet, all the exhibitions until now have been aimed at an adult audience. Mission Masterpiece was therefore an important step in making the Rijksmuseum more child-friendly. Furthermore: this was a chance to make a very essential but unknown part of the museum – Science and Conservation – more visible.
Leading questions:
What role does science play withing your institution? What opportunities do you see for an interdisciplinary approach within your own practice?
How can art museums adopt successful strategies from science museum to engage children with their collections?
How can we encourage/enable children and curators/scientists to cocreate? (What chances do you see within your institution to facilitate collegues (f.e. scientist, art historians) to work together with children and help them design for children?
How can you use storytelling when designing an exhibition about science (and art) for children?
How can you use an interdisciplinary approach when designing a family exhibition? What are challenges and when will this be successful?
Short description of organization:
The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands. At the Rijksmuseum, art and history take on new meaning for a broad-based, contemporary national and international audience. The Rijksmuseum offers a representative overview of Dutch art and history from the Middle Ages onwards, and of major aspects of European and Asian art, with 8000 objects in 80 rooms.
www.rijksmuseum.nl
Short biography:
Irma has been part of the Public & Education department of the Rijksmuseum since 2019. As senior educator for families with children she is responsible for strategy and policy, programming (including large-scale family events) and the development of new and innovative educational tools. She was also co-creator of the 2023 exhibition Mission Masterpiece, the first ever family exhibition at the Rijksmuseum.
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Meet Irma de Vries at this year’s Hands On! conference in Bern from October 25-27. For more information and registration visit https://magic.creaviva-zpk.org
