Chemistry and life sciences Lab’Expo

Two interactive films about chemistry and life sciences


The sector of chemistry is particularly developed in Belgium, but suffers from a disaffection of the students. Bad press, lack of means in school, ignorance of the challenges and the trades, the chemistry and the life sciences have difficulty recruiting.

It is this report which pushed Colvalent and Essenscia to act with Le Pass museum (Frameries, Belgium), to create a new space :  chemistry and life sciences Lab’ Expo.  Around an actual laboratory, in which the young visitors (from 8 years old) can take part in workshops of experiments, revolve the elements of an exposure which opens the doors of a world of research and enthralling scientific discoveries.

C’est magnifique produced my project of two multimedia interactives ordered by the museum: The microscopic menagerie and Scientists-to-be. In order to remain in the spirit of scenography, made of boxes luminous and coloured out of plexiglass, I worked starting from photographs of plexiglass elements created for the occasion by the jeweler Magali Wassong.

One often presents chemistry itself like a kind of magic, but, I wanted that only the process of animation is carrying this magic. I thus took as a starting point the automats of fair to invent a ludic and a little magic experiment. But the facts, them, remain what they are: an incredible mechanics of life, quite real.

Scientists-to-be proposes a quizz of 4 questions. At its conclusion the application proposes to the child to discover a job in chemistry and life sciences which he could like. I used questions from daily life, which enlighten qualities of the child (patience, meticulousness,…). Thus, it is a positive experiment which is offered to him.

The microscopic menagerie invites to discover the world of the viruses. What are they? Which is their mode of reproduction? How our body fight them? How do the vaccines act? One often presents this subject using warlike metaphors, which can be easily understood. I wanted to pose another glance on enthralling mechanisms. In a very ludic production, made of colored animated gears, I invite the visitor to discover hidden elements thanks to a red magnifying glass. He seeks in the image, he is astonished, he discovers, he is active. The fight against the epidemics passes by this curiosity, this desire for discovering, not only by a desire for fighting.

Réplication virale

Writing, direction, graphism: Anne Viel
Objects’ creation: Magali Wassong
Character Design: Clémentine Roach
Programming: Rudy Marc
Animation: Anne Viel
Sound design: Thierry Viel
Voices: Melissa Baker, Veerle Verheyen, Livia Dufoix
Scientific consultant: Tania Louis

Production C’est magnifique for Le Pass (Nathalie Cimino)