museum Boerhaave / Anders Kijken

  • studio Louter
  • museum Boerhaave
  • voice-recording, sound design, audio postproduction
  • films and installations
  • 2017

Connecting visitors with stories

The Dutch national museum of science and medicine boasts a world-famous collection of objects, including Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscope, Einstein’s pen and Vesalius’s anatomical drawings. To connect visitors with the stories and people behind these treasures, we developed the overarching concept “Looking differently” using the Emotion Design method.

Human work

Interactive installations and AV elements offer visitors personal perspectives on the collection and also challenge them to look differently at science. They can make ethical decisions just as a doctor would, play the part of a seventeenth century pharmacist, and protect the Netherlands from the water in the “polder game”. Visitors discover that science is human work. The result is an emotional connection to scientific objects that may seem remote at first. In the words of the Dutch daily newspaper NRC, “The new Boerhaave shows the people behind the instruments.” Rijksmuseum Boerhaave was named European Museum of the Year in 2019.