Developing the Kaleidoscope Online Exhibition Space
The development of the Kaleidoscope Online Exhibition Space represents a key milestone within the project. The platform has been designed to create a digital space where educational resources and produced artwork can be freely accessed and showcased during and beyond the lifespan of the project.
Visitors can explore and download materials, print resources for workshops or classrooms, and engage with the creative works developed throughout the project. This space has been created to support youth workers, educators, artists, young people and communities, encouraging creative expression, participation and intercultural exchange.
One of the most important aspects of the platform is its role in showcasing the artwork created by the young people involved in Kaleidoscope. Their work is at the centre of the exhibition space and will remain available online for at least the next five years. This gives the artwork a much wider audience and a much longer life than a traditional exhibition alone could offer. While participants will still experience their work being displayed at local arts festivals and events, the online exhibition means it can also be discovered and enjoyed by people anywhere in the world. That sense of reach and visibility is incredibly valuable, particularly for our young artists who may never have had the opportunity to share their work internationally before.
The development of the Online Exhibition Space is an ongoing process, and as it has gone through successive rounds of testing, the approach has evolved along the way. The original vision was to create a VR art exhibition that would allow visitors to walk through the space using a platform such as Artsteps. While the concept looked visually impressive, feedback and user testing quickly revealed that some visitors found the experience disorienting and difficult to navigate. Concerns were also raised about accessibility. A second idea was suggested by the Kaleidoscope consortium, and imagined the layout to resemble that of an art museum or gallery website. Drawing on pre-existing platforms such as the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for inspiration.
The final design is much easier to navigate, allowing visitors to quickly find collections, resources, and project information without feeling overwhelmed.
Accessibility was also a major priority throughout development. The platform includes a WCAG-compliant accessibility tool designed to help users adapt the website to suit their individual needs.
Visitors can adjust settings such as text size, contrast, and readability features, making the site more inclusive and easier to use for a wider range of people.
What makes the Kaleidoscope Online Exhibition Space particularly valuable is that it is both an active resource and a constantly evolving one, designed to continue supporting creativity and learning long after the project ends, and adapting to the needs and feedback of its users.
Check it out for yourself!
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the OeAD-GmbH. Neither the European Union nor OeAD-GmbH can be held responsible for them. Project No.: 2024-2-AT01-KA220-YOU-
English 
German 
Greek 
Portuguese 
Icelandic 
Turkish