Familytour:
House of Representatives
Het Imaginarium | ProDemos (The Netherlands)
Overview
Year: 2026
Location: ProDemos, House of Representatives (The Netherlands)
Type: Familytour
My role: Concept & text
In collaboration with:
Het Imaginarium (concept & text)
Sjoukje Kloostra (graphic design)
Mirjam Hoeberichts (project manager)
Janneke Francissen (editor)
Anita Rademakers (editor)
About the project
ProDemos wanted to create a family tour that makes democracy tangible, accessible and fun. Not just for families who already know a lot about politics, but also for families who might feel a little further away from it.
Together with Het Imaginarium, I developed a playful and interactive tour through the House of Representatives for families with children aged 6 to 12. The tour combines storytelling, conversation and hands-on activities, allowing families to discover how democracy works by experiencing it themselves.
Instead of simply explaining how voting, political parties and lawmaking work, families go through the process themselves. They vote, make choices, discuss different perspectives, work together, make compromises and eventually create their own law.
The idea for this familytour: learn about democracy by doing democracy.
About the familytour
The tour starts with a question: What do you think is important?
Everyone gets to vote, and everyone gets to choose. Families discover that people can value different things, and that this is exactly where democracy begins.
From there, their votes turn into choices. Families work together to decide what matters most, look at their choice from different perspectives and adjust their ideas along the way. They discover that making decisions together isn't always about getting exactly what you want. Sometimes it's about listening, giving a little and finding a solution that works for everyone.
The tour takes families through the actual building of the House of Representatives, including the plenary hall. The spaces themselves become part of the story: this is where the things they are learning about actually happen.
At the end, families become lawmakers themselves. They write down their own proposal, present it to the other families and officially have it approved with a royal stamp.
They leave the House of Representatives with their very own law to take home.
Throughout the tour, the focus is not only on learning how the Dutch political system works, but on experiencing what it means to make choices together, listen to different perspectives and have a say. It turns a potentially complex subject into something families can explore, discuss and experience together.
