The Norwegian Petroleum Museum in Stavanger and Kvorning Design & Communication launch a new exhibition, Deep Secrets, about petroleum geology. The concept features a distinctive key idea accompanied by stunningly grand visual effects and offer facts and knowledge in a pioneering form.

The new exhibition at the Petroleum Museum, Deep Secrets, is pure Jules Vernes! Indeed! Focusing on exploration, activities and drama, lots of challenges for hearts and minds, areas with both analogue and digital attractions which stimulate collaboration, learning and play, the exhibition appeals to 12-year olds in particular – and thus involves entire families.

200 million years ago

’Deep Secrets’ explains why there is so much oil and gas embedded in the seabed off the Norwegian shores. The visitors will embark on a journey taking them 200 million years back in time to find out how algae that absorbed energy from the sunlight, sank to the bottom and were transformed into oil and gas by slow, geological processes, can give us energy today. We hope and believe that this undertaking will become the new attraction at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum. Our goal is to entice our visitors’ curiosity with new, exciting dissemination, grand design and a brand new, powerful architectonic element within the museum’, says Anja W. Fremo, Head of Exhibition and Communication at The Norwegian Petroleum Museum.

Oil stream

The design is inspired by oil and the sea. Two big, billowing walls stand as a moving stream that cuts through the exhibition space, the underwater and the underground. When you move in between the walls you will face a subsea universe with a 360⁰ 3D-narrative in moving images illustrating the oil formation process. The surfaces of the walls display facts as well as interactive elements.

Learn and play

’Deep Secrets’ have been developed through a close collaboration between The Norwegian Petroleum Museum and Kvorning Design & Communication. The joint efforts have resulted in a concept with both analogue and digital types of dissemination and interactive elements. They blend smoothly together and convert technically difficult questions and problems into simple and useful knowledge thus combining education and entertainment in a playful way.

The exhibition opens to the public on 31 May 2017 and was won in an invited competition.