Nerdlab is a creators collective with a lab in Ghent. Every creator can join. Together with six others, I created the project 'The drawing loom' for The Museum of Industry during the Museum Night in Ghent. During this night, people can visit the museums for free, so The Museum of Industry wanted us to create something fun for the visitors. We connected the beautiful view of Ghent that you can see through the big windows of the museum with the museum's main subject: the industrial period. The visitors could use our 'drawing loom' to create a tapestry of the beautiful city of Ghent.
How does it work
We created eight animations linked to a famous building or location of Ghent that was important for the Industrial Period. The animation and sound showed why this location was important e.g. 'the graslei' moves like water and you can hear sounds of a port, because this place was an important port at the time. The animations also contain a small text that explain this importance. We hung a beamer at the ceiling of the museum and made a canvas on which the animations could be projected. The outlines of Ghent were also projected on the canvas. The visitors could push one of eight buttons that triggered one of the animations. They could then use the projected animations as a guideline to draw the important buildings of Ghent. We created a drawing device that resembles a loom, to make this drawing process more interesting.
Together we created the concept and then split up in smaller groups. I was part of the animation group, made four of the eight animations, wrote the texts for the animations and for the project in general. I was also present during the Museum Night and explained the concept and workings of the drawing loom to visiting adults and children.
The project was well received, so the drawing loom was reused during the Spring Break (one week).
