To mark the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, the Musée d'Orsay turned part of its temporary exhibition galleries in Paris into a free-roaming virtual reality venue. From 26 March to 11 August 2024, visitors put on a standalone headset and walked untethered — no cable and no computer on the back — across roughly 700 square metres reconstructed as the photographer Nadar's studio on the Boulevard des Capucines on the evening of 15 April 1874, when some thirty painters, among them Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Cézanne, Pissarro and Degas, showed around 165 works outside the official Salon.
The hour-long programme included about 45 minutes of wandering virtual reality (Excurio lists the film itself at 42 minutes). Because tracking covered the whole floor rather than a seated position, groups moved through the space together and the route led out of the reconstructed exhibition to Frédéric Bazille's studio, the island of La Grenouillère and Le Havre, where Monet painted Impression, Soleil Levant. The experience was open to visitors aged 11 and over, and wheelchairs were provided for those with reduced mobility. Tickets were €32 full price and €16 reduced, sold separately from museum admission.
The experience was developed and co-produced by Excurio, GEDEON Experiences and the Musée d'Orsay under the scientific direction of the exhibition's curators, Sylvie Patry and Anne Robbins, and drew on more than two years of research followed by eight months of production, with production aid from France's Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée. It ran alongside the physical exhibition Paris 1874. Inventing Impressionism, and the museum reported close to 80,000 visitors by the time it closed on 11 August 2024. The production was nominated for XR Location Based Entertainment of the Year at the 2024 XR Awards and shown in official competition at Venice Immersive during the 81st Venice Biennale. After the museum run it was licensed to permanent immersive-expedition venues in France, the United States, China, Japan, Brazil and South Korea.
