Kopf Über [Overhead]

Since Autumn 2014, the ZKM instigated the »Kopf Über« [Overhead] project, which was sponsored as part of the »Von uns – für uns! Die Museen unserer Stadt entdeckt« [By us – for us! Discover our city’s museums] project. The German Museum Association contracted out the action plan as the project partner of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research: For the years of 2013 to 2017, agencies from the German cultural landscape – including the ZKM – were given the opportunity to provide measures in the field of extra-curricular cultural education for educationally disadvantaged children and young people.

The »Kopf Über« project turned the conventional idea of a museum on its head: Karlsruhe children and young people, aged between 12 and 18, casted a glance behind the scenes of the ZKM and discovered the museum operations from another perspective. Starting with a journey of discovery through the ZKM, the first participants experienced the background to the exhibition and projection facilities. Supported by art organizers from the museum communications team and artists and crafts people, they explored the museum and experienced the interrelated technology of media and culture. Then, they could put their new knowledge into practice as well as acting as »professionals« to pass it on to their contemporaries, at eye level.
 
In a total of two project modules, the museum communications team worked with different partners and groups of young people, always leaving plenty of room for the question »What might a contemporary museum of the future look like?«. The aim of the project was to open the door to cultural offerings for young people, who have rarely or never coming into contact with the subject of museums before and to transport a piece of this place of discovery into their world.