Capturing "Mythmakers" with Brian Chin from p3
Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington might be down, but you can still visit and explore the exhibition online, thanks to the virtual tour designed with our creative partners at p3. Brian Chin, Co-founding Partner and Creative Director at p3, spearheaded the use of this innovative technology in our galleries, and shared the experience with us.
COVID-19 has had a seismic impact on many cultural institutions across the world, and art museums have been hit particularly hard. To the degree that a museum can pivot and offer non-traditional offerings or virtual experiences to its members, the more successful it will be in engaging audiences during the pandemic and ultimately after it subsides. Our partnership with the PMA is open and collaborative, and as soon as the lock-down in March hit, we were working together to help bring digital content online for the community to interact with. Our first virtual tour, for Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times, was put together more as an afterthought, as we rushed through the museum the day before everything shut down to try to capture whatever we could. Thankfully, the exhibition had already been on view for nearly two months beforehand.
For Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington, we had a bit more time to think about how we could make a more immersive virtual experience. Using a platform called Matterport, used primarily in the upscale real estate industry, we were able to capture 360° images from nearly 200 locations in the gallery at very high quality. This created a seamless environment where the user can navigate through space, view the objects from a variety of angles, and even read the placards. Nothing compares to the in-person experience of seeing Homer and Remington up close, but for a digital substitute, it does succeed.
Over time, we’d like to be able to capture the museum’s entire permanent collection as well as the rotating exhibitions. To us, it represents a potential opportunity to offer online-only memberships to a different and expanded audience. Most importantly though, by making the artwork digitally available beyond the walls of the museum, our community broadens. And while, yes, nearly everything is going virtual in some form or another, when the PMA does it in a way that can bring these important exhibitions and conversations to those that would otherwise be unable to participate, that’s something you can feel pretty good about being a part of.