Verrekijker
What if, through the museum’s large attic window, you could see not only the city as it is today, but also a glimpse of the future? This viewing window, also known as the Duikbril, inspired the idea of inviting young people to imagine alternative views and bring them to life using augmented reality.
Together with teachers from Blariacumcollege (Media, Design & ICT), the museum developed a programme in which students Bryan, Djamilla, Joshua, Kyan, Lizzy, Michal, Noor and Stein were invited to visualise their own dreams for the future. They were guided by artist Benjamin Pompe (the Netherlands, 1997).
Verrekijker
Benjamin Pompe gave a short series of lessons in which he showed his own work and spoke with the students about art, technology and imagination. He then asked them: What does your ideal future look like? Through sketches – digital, in clay and on paper – they gave shape to their ideas. It was striking how often nature played a central role.
Many of the designs show a clear concern for our future living environment. For example, one student imagined an artificial tree with a built-in machine that produces oxygen, as a response to the disappearance of forests and rainforests. Another design shows a skeleton as a reminder of lost life forms and marks the beginning of a new world. Life under water was also explored, with a colourful floating ray that highlights the often forgotten beauty and vulnerability of the ocean. The future was also imagined through playful and creative ideas, such as a pickle-cat, a guitar sinking into the floor and a happy doughnut.
All of the students’ designs were given a place in the digital sculpture that was eventually put together by the artist. He created a kind of treehouse or nest: a place where all these future creatures live together as a connected family. The work was given the title Verrekijker.
A future where everyone is welcome
Benjamin says about the project: “Our love of fiction and fantasy is often about escaping to worlds that feel kinder and more open than our own. Verrekijker focuses on a possible future that the students believe in: a world where the boundaries between humans and animals, nature and machines, the beautiful and the strange begin to blur. A future where everyone is welcome.”