The Munich stage of UNPLUGGED demonstrated how dramatically the audience of a travelling exhibition can change simply by changing its location.
Initially presented at the Bavarian Research Alliance (BayFOR), the exhibition was encountered mainly by researchers, SME representatives, academic administrators, BayFOR employees and professional visitors. Around 60 people were estimated to have seen it in this setting.
In April 2025, however, UNPLUGGED moved into the public library at MOTORAMA München. The library is open around the clock, seven days a week, and is located in a multifunctional building used by citizens, travellers, digital nomads, shoppers and school groups. A nearby Europe Direct office provided an additional connection to the project’s European dimension.
This new setting transformed the exhibition into an educational laboratory.
Eight one-hour workshops were organised with school classes from the second to fourth grades. Children first learned about CIRCOTRONIC, its European character and the importance of repairing electronic equipment or disposing of e-waste correctly.
Then the perspective shifted from today’s problems towards tomorrow’s possibilities.
After listening to a Future Story, the children were asked to imagine an electronic device of the future and express their idea through drawing or writing. Each workshop concluded with selected activities from the Be Here Now card game, bringing participants back from imagining the future to experiencing the present.
The game proved particularly effective. The facilitators deliberately chose simple cards encouraging interactions such as eye contact or imitation, creating a natural transition from individual imagination to shared experience.
Munich showed how UNPLUGGED could adapt to radically different audiences: from researchers and innovation professionals to young children encountering ideas about electronic waste and circularity for perhaps the first time.
The exhibition did not simply tell them what the future should look like. It invited them to draw it themselves.