MYSTERY ACADEMY: SCHOOL FOR YOUNG DETECTIVES
Catastrophe has struck at the Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives! The brilliant Head Teacher - Christie Moyo - has mysteriously disappeared. Have you got what it takes to solve the mystery and find her?
Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives is an immersive exhibition created with The Story Museum and their absolutely brilliant young Story Curators. When the headteacher of the Mystery Academy disappears on Open Day – inconvenient – prospective students and their adults can search its classrooms, examine strange objects and solve a trail of puzzles to uncover the truth. It’s a story designed to be explored, touched, played and solved.
I had the absolute privilege of developing the original story layered throughout the exhibition. It unfolds not only through in-world words, but across rooms, objects, sounds and hidden details. Visitors move through spaces including a forensics laboratory, library, dressing room and study, using observation, logic, code-breaking and creative thinking to crack the case.
I’m fascinated by the possibilities of telling stories across physical spaces: letting a misplaced object become a clue, allowing a room to reveal character, and giving audiences the freedom to uncover a narrative by listening, looking, touching, exploring and making connections. We’re told literacy is at an all time low in the UK, and we must to ‘Go All In'… Yeah. I hope experiences like this can contribute to real change.
The story was specifically designed so that clues could be uncovered in any order, and enjoyed by children and adults together, without relying on reams and reams of text. Also, importantly, the narrative is optional. If you want to visit and you don’t want to play, no problem. It isn’t intrusive; it’s there for you to discover if you choose to.
To say I loved working on this project would be an understatement of epic proportions. Collaborating with The Story Museum’s Story Curators – a group of young people aged 12–16 who designed and developed the exhibition – was a joy. Their imagination, intelligence and wonderfully rigorous opinions shaped the world of the Academy from the beginning. I can’t not mention the museum’s incredible production team – Nomi Everall is UNBELIEVABLE. Their talent is sickening and I’m obsessed with their talent and mind.
Mystery Academy: School for Young Detectives is now open at The Story Museum in Oxford.