Exploring Eye: a conversation with the creators of Mission Supereyes

The concept for the discovery route came from the association that when you go to the movies as a family with children, you usually choose a superhero film, says Maret. 'In this discovery route we have turned that around: as a family you actually play the leading role in a superhero adventure.'

The adventure that Maret and Jelle created became Mission Supereyes, a discovery route for children aged 4 to 12 in which you are guided through the entire building in five ‘missions’. With a booklet in hand, families are taken into the world of film. For example, you will learn how filmmakers use depth to make their films seem even more real, how a camera obscura works and you can play bingo in the temporary exhibition.

‘You want families to feel welcome in the museum building, that when they enter they immediately get the feeling that they are going to experience something fun’, says Jelle. ‘We started looking for ways to add something to the building, by turning things upside down a little bit’, Maret adds. ‘The question was: how can we give what is already there an extra layer? We went into the building to see what places there actually are and where we want the families to visit. Then we started looking for the common denominator, something that was reflected in all those places. That was ‘looking’. That then became the common thread in Mission Supereyes, the thing that connects all the missions.’

‘The most complicated question in the development of the discovery route was how to guide visitors through the building. Because how do you get past the animation tables without getting stuck there? And how do you know that you have to turn left at the end of the corridor, for example?’ says Jelle.

Maret: ‘Actually, the assignment for the discovery route consisted of two parts. In addition to the substantive assignments, this was also the wayfinding for families, because Eye is quite a difficult building to find your way in. Because with the previous route, visitors often did not know where to go and what to do, we were given that assignment very explicitly. Because exploring and searching is fun, but you also need to have enough successful experiences. In addition, the superheroes that Jelle designed helped a lot in bringing to life the feeling of going on a mission, the feeling that you want to evoke in families.’

The superheroes, whose eye-shaped heads are a nod to the Eye logo, can now be found throughout the building. At the festive opening of the new discovery route, it was even possible to take a picture with the superheroes in real life. However, the figures were not part of the plan at first.

Jelle: ‘You want to design figures in a way that the visitor thinks: I like it when they tell me a story. That is the challenge in the design. It has to have a certain degree of abstraction so that people can identify with it, but not associate the figure with, for example, the annoying boy next door.’

The superhero figure has developed over time. In doing so, Maret and Jelle took into account the broad target group that Eye wants to appeal to with Mission Supereyes. The discovery route must appeal to different people. Jelle: ‘We certainly took diversity and inclusion into account. Initially, we only had one figure with a yellow face, but because a yellow skin colour is mainly associated with neutrality from a white perspective, we opted for multiple figures with different colours. Ultimately, we now notice that it works very well with the different figures.’

During the May holiday, a special test week was organised in which families were invited to walk the discovery route for the first time. One of the biggest challenges for Maret was the large age difference of the children for whom the discovery route is offered: ‘During the May holiday, we had very diverse families, both in composition and background, visit us. What you saw is that young children were still guided a lot by their parents to follow the main line of the story, while older children go their own way more. That happens quite intuitively, that parents and children get started on it themselves. It is simply the case that there are different ages in a family, but almost everyone can look.’

When all the missions in Mission Supereyes have been completed, the children will see with ‘super eyes’. Maret and Jelle hope that when you have completed the discovery route together with kids, you will look at the world just a little differently than before. They want to reach out to families to make a visit to a museum an unforgettable experience for both children and adults by using fantasy and imagination. ‘You want families to have had a positive experience together in the museum and that they have also learned things about film, the museum and each other, almost ‘accidentally’.

Jelle agrees: ‘If families have had a positive experience and have experienced the magic of film, they may come back for a return visit to the museum.’

Maret: ‘This is how you make families skilled in visiting museums with children. Research has shown that when children visit a museum with their parents, that is the biggest predictor of whether you will become a culture lover later on.’

Jelle: ‘The experience of going to a museum as a child is also much more intuitive and fun than if you want to teach children something from the phone, for example. The discovery route shows that a visit to a museum does not have to be boring. In this way, you not only give the child but also the parent a successful experience.’