The Zum-Zum Chil­dren’s mu­se­um launched its ‘Make Mas!’ ex­hi­bi­tion on Mon­day which is aimed at pro­vid­ing a more in­ter­ac­tive en­vi­ron­ment for chil­dren to un­der­stand Car­ni­val cul­ture. It’s the sec­ond it­er­a­tion of a sim­i­lar ex­hib­it done last year ti­tled Play Mas.

“The dif­fer­ence be­tween a chil­dren’s mu­se­um and a reg­u­lar mu­se­um is that the chil­dren’s mu­se­um is much more in­ter­ac­tive...they can ex­pe­ri­ence the ex­hi­bi­tions in a tac­tile way in an ex­pe­ri­en­tial way rather than just see­ing it on the wall and not be­ing able to touch it,” mu­se­um cre­ative di­rec­tor Son­ja Du­mas ex­plained dur­ing the launch.

She said pro­vid­ed with­in the ex­pe­ri­ence for the chil­dren would al­so be a mas camp be­hind the mu­se­um.

Du­mas said lo­cal de­sign­ers and artists have do­nat­ed their time to be a part of the ex­hi­bi­tion and to teach the chil­dren the var­i­ous arts with­in Car­ni­val’s his­to­ry such as wire bend­ing.

“We have a set of fan­tas­tic ar­ti­sans and artists from the com­mu­ni­ty of artists in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Some of the ex­hibits were de­signed by a young artist called Jade Drakes. Part of the ex­hi­bi­tion was de­signed by vet­er­an artists Park­er Nicholas, we have Daniel El­liot...we have a set of peo­ple who have very kind­ly of­fered to come and teach the chil­dren dif­fer­ent as­pects of de­sign,” she said.

Du­mas said it has al­ways been a dream of hers to start a chil­dren’s mu­se­um.

“I had want­ed to do a chil­dren’s mu­se­um for a very long time in Trinidad be­cause I had seen chil­dren’s mu­se­ums abroad and I saw how chil­dren re­spond­ed and how their cre­ativ­i­ty would grow when they had the ex­pe­ri­ence of a chil­dren’s mu­se­um,” she said.

This is the first of three ex­hibits the mu­se­um plans on host­ing for the year which she said was made pos­si­ble with the help of Re­pub­lic Bank’s Pow­er to Make a Dif­fer­ence pro­gramme.

“We’re kick­ing off with the Make Mas and then we’re go­ing in­to a se­ries of oth­er ones that have dif­fer­ent themes,” she ex­plained.

The ex­hi­bi­tion caters to chil­dren be­tween the ages of three to 12 years and runs un­til March 1.

More in­for­ma­tion can be found on the mu­se­um’s Face­book page Zum-Zum Mu­se­um.