It's been a great pleasure working over the last couple years with Midt-Troms Museum in Bardufoss, Norway, way up north of the Arctic Circle, and parent museum of Norway's first children's museum. The museum has incorporated many leading approaches drawn from the children's museum field, including cultural connections to the native community (Sami) and a focus on positive parent/child interactions.
Visitors explore cultures and send e-cards of themselves
In the Postkort (postcard) program, installed in a traditional mailbox, visitors can see themselves in a variety of occupational and cultural backgrounds, including a fisherman, bus drive, shop keeper, and more (see image above). And our installation of Storykiosk, developed with a Norwegian interface, invites families on a bus in the exhibit to sing a song ("Hjulene på bussen / The Wheels on the Bus") or create puppet shows together.
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testing out our Storykiosk interface in Norwegian
Special thanks to Lisa Bostwick, who set the founding vision for the museum after many interactions with the Association of Children's Museums (ACM) community. The installation set out to develop a framework allowing museums in different countries to share stories, songs, and puppet shows.
If you're heading to the ACM Interactivity conference in New Orleans April 26-28, be sure to visit us in the exhibit hall to check it out. As well, we'll be at the American Alliance of Museums conference in Denver, booth 1252. Hope to see you here or there...
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