Telling the Story of the Offshore Industry

“We are good in offering a platform to the maritime sector”, says Lucie Kuijpers, exhibition officer at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam. “However, there is one piece of history that is missing at the moment, the offshore industry.”

And that is why the Maritime Museum is opening the Offshore Experience, in which the history as well as the future of this industry will be highlighted in collaboration with the industry’s companies.

“The offshore industry is a young industry in relation to other maritime industries, but one in which a lot has been going on in the last sixty years. At school, we learn about the thriving maritime industry the Netherlands has since the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, but we learn little about the innovative offshore industry that has developed in the Netherlands. We decided it was time to look back at the past of this industry, but with a focus on the future”, explains Kuijpers.

Focus point

That is why the Maritime Museum Rotterdam has developed a focus point offshore, which has three complementary parts: the assembly of the National Offshore Collection, research into the history of the industry at PhD level and the development of a state-of-the-art ‘Offshore Experience’ at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam.

Kuijpers: “The museum has 200,000 visitors, of which 15,000 visit us with school excursions, per year. A lot of them know little about the offshore, but can be interested in working in this industry. The greatness of the offshore industry is overwhelming and it is very special to see and to show how big the role of the Netherlands in all of this is. The Maritime Museum Rotterdam can offer the Dutch offshore companies a platform to tell their stories to all these visitors, with our new attention on the offshore industry.”

The Maritime Museum Rotterdam is already actively shaping the named complementary parts. Mid-2015 the curator of the museum will complete and publish his PhD thesis on the offshore industry and in January of this year the museum already started to assemble a collection of the industry. They are planning to open the Offshore Experience at the beginning of 2016.

Enthusing the industry

“To make the exposition succeed”, says Kuijpers, “we need the support from the industry. Therefore, we try to involve them in the museum. We offer the possibility of hosting events for example, but the Offshore Experience is also a way in which you can show your family what you are actually doing offshore or to enthuse students who can be your future employees.”

She continues: “At this very moment we are in conversation with companies from the industry itself. Not only do we want to know if they can help us financially, but we also look for companies that can help us tell the story of the offshore industry or that can provide us with real materials we can use in the exposition. These materials can be models, but also tools for example. To reach these companies we are organising expert meetings, in which we can consult them about all of this, but we also visit companies to explain what we are doing. The IRO, the Association of Dutch Suppliers in the Oil and Gas Industry, and companies like Royal IHC, Heerema and Van Oord are already supporting the Offshore Experience with their time, knowledge, money, materials or otherwise.”

Take a look

The Offshore Experience will be a permanent exhibition in the Maritime Museum Rotterdam, where the history and future of the offshore industry will be highlighted. The exposition floor where the Offshore Experience will be built exists of 800 square metres, on which the museum wants to present the, underwater, world of the offshore industry. Kuijpers: “The idea is to construct a steel construction, hopefully from material used in the offshore, that looks and feels like an offshore platform. The visitors will be surrounded by a 360° video wall, which will display a 360° panoramic film that creates the illusion you actually are in the middle of the ocean. With an elevator you can descend to the underwater world where a video wall at the ceiling will give you the feeling of actually being underwater. You can see vessels passing by and animals swimming around you.”

She continues: “The platform will also contain many small screens, where visitors can learn more about the industry. The plan is to give the screens four different cameras, with different roles in relation to particular objects like vessels or tools. We are thinking about an augmented reality camera, which brings models to life, a people camera that will let real people from the industry tell their stories, a history camera, which will show short documentaries about the history of an object and lastly the underwater camera, with which you can discover what is going on underwater. This way we can show the role of the offshore industry worldwide and the impact on our day to day life.”

The future

In order to give the exposition some shape, five themes were formulated that all display the technological, human interest, safety and innovation, history and educational value of the offshore industry. These themes are exploring, construction, transport, drilling/production and new frontiers. Kuijpers: “Take the theme new frontiers. We do not only want to tell the history of the industry, but also show the future. The offshore is dynamic and new developments like wind or tidal energy are very important.”

Anne Kregting