institution: Nederlands Openluchtmuseum
category: Exhibition Media or Experience
The Dutch Open-air Museum and Rijksmuseum collaborated in a major project: an exhibition that explains 5000 years of Dutch History. ‘The Canon of the Netherlands’ is divided over 50 image windows. These are the 50 things you need to know about the history of the Netherlands, starting from the dolmens, structures made of stone from 3000 B.C.
In the exhibit these image windows are distributed over the 10 time periods from De Rooij, which are used in Dutch History education. The exhibit tells about the flourish of the Netherlands as well as the slavery and oppression.
With over 25 games and interactive installations, 3 panorama films and one big Canon wall, the whole exhibit is spectacularly engaging and interactive.
For the category Exhibition Media or Experience, we would like to submit the Canon Wall. This interactive wall of 2 by 14 meters is built up of twenty 75 inch touch screens. This makes it one of the biggest interactive walls in the world. The Canon wall is a spectacular ending of this exhibit, presenting all 50 image windows in one glance and is educative as well as fun for all kinds of visitors.
In front of the wall are games that you can play using your newfound knowledge of the Canon. For those who like to move, there is a scavenger hunt to play. This game asks questions about the similarities between image windows and a little on-screen ball will ‘personally’ guide you along the wall to gather the answers (see video at 01:10).
For those that would rather play a game together, there is a group game about utensils through the ages. When was the vacuum cleaner first introduced? And iron utensils? Place your answer and score points by ‘betting’ on other peoples placement of different utensils in time. With a little knowledge and in particular by playing as a team, you can go far in this game.
The provided trailer shows a brief overview about the whole exposition. The Canon Wall shows at 01:05.