Department of Design

The research project “Histories for the Global Present. Curatorial Learning in Schools and Museums” challenges the widespread notion of history being based on sequential events, places and people, thereby suggesting causality within its linear narrative. The research project counters this rigid view of history with a relational and pluriversal approach, which can be explored autonomously through the engaging gameplay of the educational app “Müliweg Eins”. In line with this approach, the app addresses a broad audience: while children and adolescents constitute its primary target group, it was actively designed to be engaging for adults as well.

“Our aim is to shift away from a perspective that divides the world into nations, regions or eras. Instead, our project seeks to show that the world has always been entangled. In the modern era, these entanglements were driven primarily by colonialism, but not only. Trade, migration and the circulation of knowledge, images and ideas were also important factors. The present can only be understood if the complexity of historical entanglements becomes apparent. In the spirit of a genealogy of the present, we seek to trace how these histories continue to shape the here and now”» explains Sophia Prinz.

Objects from the collection of the Swiss Foundation for Art, Culture and History (SKKG) are at the heart of this exploration. “They are shaped as much by their connection to Switzerland as by the history of their global entanglements. We asked ourselves how we could deconstruct the idea of cultural identity while rethinking the museum for the present and making it accessible to a younger audience,” explains Prinz. The project seeks to explore new forms of interactive and playful learning in a virtual museum space. “Our primary focus is on skills rather than factual knowledge. We are developing a different form of history education – a sort of treasure hunt for schools,” says Prinz, who has found the ideal environment for her project at ZHdK. Here, expertise in game design, interaction design, visual communication and other design disciplines can be linked with academic, curatorial and artistic research.

“The digital museum is conceived as an open space, and our app as a treasure trove where children and adolescents can independently explore concepts, phenomena and connections”. Considerable care has gone into designing this world, which is intended to be both explored and shaped by its users. The spaces were first painstakingly constructed as physical models by research associate and designer Laura Hänsler, then captured using photogrammetry and translated into the digital realm. “This process demonstrates the particular creative potential that emerges at the intersection of materiality and digitality, while also highlighting the key role of design as a didactic tool” says Prinz.

The app presents users with an immersive and atmospherically rich environment that invites them to explore the artefacts in the SKKG’s collection and delve into the complexity of their histories. The artefacts form the basis for exhibitions that users can curate within the app’s gallery spaces. At the heart of this approach is the concept of curatorial learning, which enables the audience to uncover new or unexpected relations by arranging artefacts, images and texts from the past and present them in their own constellations. This process is supported by the design of the virtual world, which encourages users to establish connections through visual and formal associations. In the laboratory, for example, the “Morphograph” generates such unexpected associations between the objects.

The digital museum “Müliweg Eins” offers an experimental and self-directed way of engaging with the objects in its collection. Users are encouraged to draw on their own imagination when engaging with the gaps and ambiguities in the objects’ often incomplete stories.