Apocalypse Münsterland
The project
‘Apokalypse Münsterland’ was a collaborative project involving museums and exhibition venues that explored digital outreach methods and visitor-centred approaches in order to position themselves for the future. Under the project leadership of Münsterland e.V., over 25 cultural institutions in the Münsterland region worked together with the following partners: Münster University of Applied Sciences, Department of Architecture (Münster School of Architecture, MSA), BOK + Gärtner GmbH (agency for communication design and scenography) and the FabLab of münsterLAND.digital e.V.
The project’s key areas of focus were cooperation, participation, digitisation and the promotion of cultural offerings. Against the backdrop of a digital apocalypse and a cry for help from the future, the museums and exhibition venues posed the following key question to their visitors: “Which cultural asset do you want to preserve, and why?”. This could be an exhibit, but ideas, concepts and other treasures were also eligible.
The tangible result was a digital and mobile exhibition. It toured 16 venues across the Münsterland region in the summer of 2019 and helped the participating institutions gain greater visibility in the region. Furthermore, it aimed to attract new visitor groups.
The story
The Münsterland region has received an SOS from the future: people have lost their roots. Always online, in the Matrix, in search of distraction. The downfall crept up on us: mobile phones, tablets and smart TVs were merely the first harbingers of total digitalisation. After the digital apocalypse, nothing is real anymore; nothing has any substance.
Everything is uniform and standardised. Society is on the brink of collapse. Yet scientists have found the cultural diversity they’ve been longing for: in the past, right here with us. A dose of digitised culture from the present is to be sent into the future and fed into it there. A cry for help to this end transcends the boundaries of space and time.
“Send us culture! Art, artefacts, literature, objects, ideas, concepts, treasures!” reads the SOS from the future. The future wants to know what matters to people. What moves them. What they want to preserve.
