The triumphant New York premiere of the exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams brought together sumptuous Dior fabrics, designs, and artifacts with unique projection enhancement. The exhibition brings to life Dior’s many sources of inspiration—from the splendor of flowers and other natural forms to classical and contemporary art. With objects drawn primarily from the Dior archives, the exhibition includes a vast array of over two hundred haute couture garments as well as photographs, archival videos, sketches, vintage perfume elements, accessories, and works from the Museum’s collection.
Presented in the Museum’s magnificent 20,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts Court, the extensive exhibition installation was designed by Agence NC, Paris. The audio/visual systems designed by WorldStage support the design created by La Meduse, Paris and include various contextual displays, archival footage and the dramatic centerpiece in the main atrium entitled “The Enchanted Garden” that features a fully immersive projection environment
The visual component of Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams utilized thirty content streams hitting projectors and monitors of different types. The different display configurations ran the gamut from standard 16:9 to ellipsoidal to 360-degree immersive, ratcheting up the challenge for the video system designers and programmers.
Projection System Designer Josh Weisberg stated, “The variety and quantity of display configurations are amazing to see in one exhibit. The design called for a pixel-perfect ellipse at the entry, ultra-short throw projection in a number of places, projection on multi-layer scrim and star curtains, monitors with multiple picture-in-picture scenic inserts and then there was one of the most challenging immersive designs I’ve worked on; The Enchanted Garden.”
Weisberg continues, “The atrium space at the Brooklyn Museum is a large beaux-arts interior space—very beautiful, with columns, arches and lots of other detail—that was completely mapped. In addition, the mapping continued onto large three-dimensional scenic pieces placed throughout. Projector placement had to be exact and planned in advance, so I relied on the Mapping Matter application to support the 3D modeling and it was spot on. Overall, the visuals created by La Meduse perform a visual magic in the space that sets just the right mood for admiring the objects.”
For the Enchanted Garden, WorldStage provided 8 UDX 4K40 projectors and 3-UDM models fed from a disguise media server system. For the other exhibits, a combination of Panasonic PT-RZ970’s and Optoma projectors were used, all fed from a Brightsign media playback network.
The playback and control systems were designed and programmed by Lead Programmer Briana Torres; Tommy Boyd handled AV project management for WorldStage; lighting install project management was by Regan Dodson. Crews worked initially remotely and then round-the-clock on site, facing supply chain issues and the need to provide proof of vaccine for all crew on a one-day notice.
