Welcome to the future!
What do mushrooms have to do with Kaffeesud? Are algae, nettles or hair really miracle substances of the future? These and other questions are addressed in the new hands-on exhibition at the Zoom Children's Museum in Vienna. Enter our competition on Facebook and win tickets to the Zoom!
The ZOOM Children's Museum in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier is a central component of Vienna's children's culture and part of one of the largest cultural areas in the world. Since 5 September it has also been a proud bearer of the Austrian Ecolabel. Sustainability, ecology, the conscious use of resources and socio-political responsibility have a high priority at the ZOOM Children's Museum, both in the teaching and in the organisation. We see it as our task to operate sustainably both internally and with regard to museum-specific requirements.
The ZOOM Kindermuseum is aware of its special, intergenerational responsibility as an institution; this applies above all to the selection of themes for the exhibitions as well as the workshops and educational programmes. The focus is on raising awareness of environmental protection, renewable energies and the future of the world - because this concerns everyone.
"To touch"
The children should realise where they can intervene, change and shape things themselves and that even small things in everyday life can bring about big changes. In addition to dealing with the content, the operational museum work also deals with the topics of sustainability and resource conservation. Processes are examined and optimised with regard to environmental compatibility and ecological action.You can read about the environmental achievements here.
What will our future be like?
What will we experience tomorrow or in a few years? Do we grow our food in the ocean and spend holidays on the moon? What do mushrooms have to do with Kaffeesud? Are algae, nettles or hair really miracle substances of the future? Why does it take 2,700 litres of water to make a T-shirt? In all this, many aspects of the circular economy & bioeconomy can be discovered and questions asked.
Not only the earth can be looked at more closely. Copyright by ZOOM Kindermuseum/ Natali Glisic.
The focus is on the new hands-on exhibition where children between 6 and 12 can travel into the future in a way that is as playful as it is artistic. The popular Vienna Children's Museum has been transformed into an experimental future laboratory for this purpose. A highlight of the exhibition is the former digital planetarium of the Natural History Museum, which is now being re-used by the ZOOM Children's Museum. It offers visitors the opportunity to take a look at planet Earth and its special ecosystems from outer space.
The spirit of research is then called for in the Blue City. The children can produce green and blue dyes from Spirulix algae and blue-green algae and dye or make old jeans sustainably in an upcycling tailor shop. There will be jobs of the future or a hands-on station where the blue planet is to be kept in motion with a rhythm machine: The children create a beat and answer questions about the future of the planet in this context. In an installation, six paths invite the children to adopt very different perspectives on the future.
Responsible for the exhibition architecture is the architecture collective AKT, which designed the Austrian contribution to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale together with Hermann Czech.
Duration of the participatory exhibition: 4.10.2023 - 25.2.2024
More information: kindermuseum.at
Ecolabel Award Ceremony. Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler, ZOOM Children's Museum Director Andrea Zsutty, Mirjam Silbergasser-Boschitz (Operations Organisation and Building Services), State Secretary for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer. Copyright by Weinwurm Photography.