A project financed by the EU is trying to make accessible to all places of cultural interest. This is the Tomato project, acronym for The Original Museum Available to Overall, an innovative initiative aimed at reducing the barriers that prevent people from disadvantaged contexts from enjoying exhibitions. Eight museums collected the challenge launched by an Italian association with a simple but powerful idea: to enclose the essence of their collections in a box and an app and send them directly to the house of people who otherwise could never visit them.
The idea behind Tomato
“Tomato was born in Pleiadi when, during the pandemic, we wondered how to travel a museum without moving the children. The idea of a museum that is put in a box ‘took shape thanks to our collaboration with Venetian Cluster, Handson! And other European partners: together we have transformed it into a hybrid experience, both digital and analog, supported by the creative European funds”, explains Alessio Scaboro and creative director. of Pleiadi, Paduan company and the Tomato project.
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Launched in the EU Creative Europe program, Tomato has developed a physical kit and a mobile app that allow users to virtually explore the participating museums, in a fun and stimulating way. The initiative is designed in particular to help children from disadvantaged contexts from a physical, cognitive or economic point of view to break down barriers.
A physical barrier could be the one who faces a child in a wheelchair who cannot enter an old museum without elevators. A cognitive barrier could be that of a child’s spectrism of autism who finds the frightening or oppressive crowded places. An economic barrier could simply be the one who faces a family who lives too far from a museum to be able to afford the journey. Tomato offers a free virtual alternative, through a playful kit and a smartphone app.
The support of the European Parliament
“Culture must be a right, not a privilege. Too often, children and families with minor opportunities remain on the margins of the cultural offer. Projects like Tomato show that it is possible to bring everyone closer to museums in a creative, interactive and sustainable way. But a structural commitment is necessary: accessibility – physical, digital and economic – must become a central criterion in European cultural policies”, ask Carolina Morace and Mario Furore, MEP of the 5 Star Movement and members of the Culture Commission of the European Parliament.
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“The fact that the EU supports a project like Tomato is doubly significant: on the one hand, it offers children with disabilities a tool to access something vital as culture; on the other, it shows how Europe can really come into contact with its citizens and their daily life”, adds Benedetta Scuderi, MEP of the Green Group, also a member of the cult commission.
Learn by playing
The kit is in practice a board game that transforms the museum experience into something interactive. This is particularly important in the light of the ‘Hand on’ approach, which is central to contemporary pedagogy. This method underlines that children learn better by doing and touching, physically interacting with materials, rather than simply listening to explanations or looking at images. And this type of interaction is particularly crucial when it comes to the little ones.
The Pleiadi Group has designed eight kits, each personalized based on the exhibitions of the participating museums: the Museum Sadolis of Padua, the Eastern art museum of Venice, the Sladovna Gallery of Písek (Czech Republic), the Croatian ecomuseum Istrian De Dignan, the Slovenian Museums Abakkum, Skrateljc and the Casa Tartini Museum, and the Frida Museum in Graz, in Graz, in Graz, in Graz. Austria.
Augmented reality
But the kit is only the beginning. To enrich the experience, a mobile app – available on Android and iOS – adds immersive features such as augmented reality and virtual tours, making exploration even more engaging, especially for children. The app is also customized for each of the eight museums and offers personalized guides and games to explain their exhibitions in their respective national languages.
“With Tomato we bring culture at home: a physical kit delivered by mail and an app that completes the online experience. The museum becomes small for the little ones, but the experience remains large: games, challenges and narratives that invite children to explore the identity of each museum by having fun,” says Scabor.
Developed thanks to a collaborative effort that involved educators, designers of games and cultural mediators, a thousand kits were distributed to partner museums and tested with children and schools. The tests proved crucial, helping the team to understand how quickly children grab the games, how much they learn and where improvements are needed, from clearer instructions to more resistant materials and better location.
A vision for the future
While the Tomato project approaches the end, all partners have expressed the strong desire to keep the experience alive and growing, even beyond the EU funding. The team is now looking for new partners and public and private investors. The goal is not only to preserve what has been achieved, but to build us on this experience.
For Scaboro, the next steps are “expanding our network of museums, co -design new and even stronger kits – without losing the magic of the game – and continuing to listen to our small testers who, better than anyone else, know how to help Tomato grow”.
