Thirty years on from its opening, the Alimentarium is preparing to close temporarily from 24 August in order to undergo an unprecedented transformation. Ahead of its reopening scheduled for June 2016, the museum held a press conference recently to launch the Alimentarium Academy platform, a totally new online learning ecosystem, and to provide a preview of the new scenography of the new permanent exhibition. As the Alimentarium makes a definitive turn towards digital media, it is positioning itself as a globally unique Centre of Competence, dedicated to matters of food and nutrition.
A pioneering online learning ecosystem
Driven by the desire to make its expertise and resources available to as many people as possible, the museum has created its Alimentarium Academy, a pioneering educational platform aimed at pupils and their teachers. Specialists and experts in digital education designed this new venture around three axes: online lesson material that allows children to learn while having fun; online courses aimed at teachers wishing to devise food and nutrition-related lessons with activities, games and videos and, finally, a mobile app, which encourages reflection and dialogue between parents and children on the topic of food. This complementary and interconnected educational programme is available on smartphones and tablets, in French, German and English.
New perspectives on current and future trends in food and nutrition
In June 2016, visitors will be able to explore a fully re-designed permanent exhibition. Organised around three themes (Food, Society and The Body), this new immersive scenography will blend digital content, discoveries and experiments to invite visitors to explore recent developments in our nutritional habits, both in Switzerland and elsewhere. Thanks to various screens, tables and interactive terminals, visitors will be able to follow the story of food, from its composition to its production and preparation. The Society sector will invite visitors to put perspective on eating habits and practices and on how food is perceived throughout the world. A voyage inside the digestive tract and in the avenues of the brain scattered with giant neurones will then await visitors in The Body sector.
A digital collection of nearly 300 objects
Designed as an extension of the exhibitions and themes presented in the museum, a new Internet portal will respond to contemporary methods of communication and consumption. Available online in spring 2016, it will offer new opportunities to further knowledge and to explore. As an integral part of a truly virtual museum, the eCollection provides another angle on various topics on food and nutrition. Many of the 300 digitised objects can already be viewed at 360° in high definition online. This electronic collection will be complemented by eSavoir reference sheets, showing simplified, illustrated scientific definitions. The first issue of the Alimentarium’s eMagazine was launched in spring 2014, to provide cultural, scientific, artistic and sociological perspective on a range of subjects associated with food and nutrition. You can view the latest edition here.
Alimentarium Academy
http://www.alimentarium.ch/en/academy
eCollection
http://www.ealimentarium.ch/en/objects
eMagazine
http://www.ealimentarium.ch/en/magazine/one-world-five-senses
