Virtual exhibition could be real winner
AN virtual reality exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery has been shortlisted for a national award.
Last year’s Thresholds exhibition, a virtual reality art project by artist Mat Collishaw, took audiences back over 170 years to the dawn of the photographic era.
VR headsets allowed visitors to walk around a recreation of ‘The Model Room’, an exhibition of “manufactures, inventions, models and philosophical instruments” staged at King Edward’s School, New Street, in August 1839. The exhibition revealed how Birmingham was at the forefront of developments in the technology that revolutionised the way we see, and understand the visible and invisible world.
The experience was fully immersive, with visitors walking freely through a digitally reconstructed room using virtual reality headsets.
It was part-funded and supported by Colmore BID, the business improvement district for the Colmore Row area, while respected photographic historian Pete James, who died in March 2018, was a driving force for the exhibition.
Thresholds has now been recognised by British BIDs, the support organisation for BIDs across the country. It will compete with events in London, Nottingham and Bournemouth for the ‘Place Marketing’ prize, which honours creative events that help attract visitors to towns and cities.
The winner will be announced on November 8 at the British BIDs National Conference in Cambridge.