A Statue for Liberty: An immersive virtual reality experience

In parallel with the exhibition Auguste Bartholdi, “La Liberté éclairant le monde / Auguste Bartholdi, Liberty Enlightening the World”, the Musée d’Orsay is presenting the exclusive virtual reality experience “Une Statue pour la Liberté, le rêve de Bartholdi, de Paris à New York / A Statue for Liberty, Bartholdi’s Dream, from Paris to New York”, covering almost 700 m² in the Museum’s Amont Gallery. This immersive production transports visitors to the very heart of one of the 19th century’s most ambitious artistic and technological projects. During the experience, they become active witnesses to the birth of a Franco-American dream, which is transformed into a monument and remains a universal symbol of liberty today. Equipped with virtual reality headsets, visitors follow in the footsteps of Auguste Bartholdi, a visionary sculptor driven by a dream greater than himself. From Versailles in 1865, where the republican thinker Édouard Laboulaye gives him the idea of a monument to Franco-American friendship, to Paris and the effervescence of the Gaget, Gauthier & Cie foundry ten years later, and on to New York Bay in 1886, where the statue is finally inaugurated. Over the course of the adventure, visitors discover Bartholdi’s sources of inspiration, the technical, political and financial obstacles he had to overcome and the decisive alliances that made his dream possible: the engineer Gustave Eiffel, the journalist Joseph Pulitzer, the foundry workers and the anonymous donors on both sides of the Atlantic, all those who, together, gave Liberty a face. The fruit of meticulous scientific work, the project is based on extensive research and detailed historical reenactments. It immerses visitors in the Gaget, Gauthier & Cie foundry, meticulously recreated by GEDEON and their partner Aristeas. They will get to see this now vanished place for themselves and appreciate its full size: a huge area where almost six hundred craftsmen and workers collaborated in the creation of the copper colossus envisioned by Bartholdi.