A Window into the Dutch Art Market

Museum of Fine Arts Boston — Center for Netherlandish Art

Creative Direction: Brett Renfer
Design Lead: Andy Moliski
Content: Lilly Preston
Development: Shuvo Das & Kevin Zakszewski

Installed in spring of 2022, Bluecadet collaborated with the Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to produce an interactive and artistic introduction to them museum’s new Center for Netherlandish Art. The room-sized interactive gives visitors an immersive glimpse into the groundbreaking Dutch art market of the 17th, and seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the factors which resulted in an explosion of creative and cultural innovation.

Controlled by gesture-based ambient movement as visitors pass through the space and utilizing large-scale projection mapping, the interactive is an artistic digital augmentation of MFA’s world-class collection of Dutch art.

Project type: Media install

The Center for Netherlandish Art

In 2021, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts opened a new wing dedicated to their extensive collection of Dutch and Flemish artworks following a sizable donation of hundreds of masterpieces. MFA partnered with Bluecadet to create an immersive introduction to the galleries by introducing visitors to the Dutch global trade and the emergence of the 17th century independent art market.

Our goal was to create an experience that rewards curiosity with immersive interactivity, and sparks interest in the artwork specifically in an audience who may be unfamiliar with art history.

To achieve this goal, we worked with the curators at MFA to create an experience that focuses on impressions— on looking, seeing, and feeling—rather than on extensive ‘tombstone’ learning.

Functionally, a core element to our strategy was creating an experience that could live in a post-covid world with user interaction based on proximity and gesture, rather than touch.