For the museums’ night event we decided to promote Europe’s day, celebrated on the 9th of May by playing games about the European Union countries, to promote sports by showing some of the most popular and traditional sports that are played around European countries, as well as promoting volleyball in Romania.
Every group of visitors entering the museum, would find the first stand with the instructions, and for the groups that wanted to play, a score sheet and a postcard to collect stamps for every completed activity were given to them. At the start point there was a frame that could be used by all visitors to take pictures, promoting the museums’ night, the association “Yellow Shirts” and the local volleyball team “Știința Explorări”. Inside the tower, visitors would see an art exposition, and at the same time play games about European Union, matching flags with countries and capitals, and placing small figures of monuments, each representing a European country, in the respective country on the map. After these two games, participants would leave the tower going back to the first stand, where they would play two more games, one about sports, matching the description of the sport with the correct picture, and the second one answering few questions about volleyball and volleyball in Romania.
The final prize was a chocolate, and kids were especially happy about this but also very enthusiastic to learn more about European countries. It was interesting to see the families playing the games altogether, but also the young students curious and eager to test their knowledge. The diversity of the participants made it all more interesting and also the fact that many people did not speak English, made me practice a little bit more the Romanian language, which was another challenge that I gladly accepted.
Apart from these activities, I also had the chance to make a photo exhibition with pictures I took from the city, another challenge as this was a first for me, and a way for me to think more about the city of Baia Mare and how do I see it, found myself photographing a lot of trees and parks. I guess this is my perspective of the town.
Overall this was a great experience and my favorite part was the direct contact with the community, talking with the visitors of the museum, sharing the same enthusiasm and curiosity for the games and the knowledge.