NOW OPEN: Immersive Virtual Reality Experience "A Statue for Liberty: Bartholdi's Dream" Debuts at the Orsay

Exhibition transports visitors into the heart of one of the 19th century’s most ambitious artistic and technical projects

PARIS, FRANCE, September 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Until January 31, 2027, the Musée d’Orsay is hosting the immersive virtual reality experience A Statue for Liberty: Bartholdi’s Dream [Une statue pour la liberté: Le rêve de Bartholdi], which covers almost 700 m² in the Museum’s Amont Gallery. The exhibition, in coproduction with VIVE Arts and Backlight, transports visitors into the heart of one of the 19th century’s most ambitious artistic and technical projects. As the story unfolds, they become active witnesses to the birth of a Franco-American dream that has become one of the universal symbols of liberty.

A STATUE FOR LIBERTY BARTHOLDI’S DREAM

15 Sept. 26 - 31 Jan. 27
Level 0, Amont Gallery
A GEDEON Experiences experience in coproduction with BackLight, Musée d’Orsay and VIVE Arts, with the participation of the Musée Bartholdi in Colmar.

Wearing virtual-reality headsets, visitors walk in Auguste Bartholdi’s footsteps. Developed on the basis of extensive historical research, the experience includes an original reconstruction of the Gaget, Gauthier & Cie workshop, created by GEDEON Experiences and their partner Aristeas. The exhibition’s curators kept a close eye on the design of the project alongside GEDEON Experiences and BackLight Studio, lending their scientific expertise to ensure faithful re-creations of the historical context and the events involved. The experience takes participants on a sensory journey where scales are constantly changing: from a simple sketch lying on a worktable to the gigantic size of the finished monument, they are physically overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the project. During their adventure, they discover the inspirations that fuelled the artist’s imagination and the events that gradually shaped his vision.

From the politician Edouard Laboulaye’s drawing room where it all began, by way of the banks of the Nile, where Bartholdi had thought of building a huge lighthouse at the entrance to the Suez Canal, to the political upheavals that shook France and the United States in the second half of the 19th century. Visitors share his enthusiasms as well as his doubts when the project seems doomed to failure: financial problems accumulate, the first models prove to be fragile and the undertaking’s very excessiveness sometimes seems insurmountable. However, driven by unstoppable determination, Bartholdi refuses to give up. Under the public’s eyes, his dream gradually takes shape, from drawing to model, and from model to monument. Virtual reality brings back to life places long since disappeared and immerses visitors in the very heart of this out-ofthe-ordinary adventure.

Participants experience the excitement of the World’s Fair in Philadelphia, where the statue’s torch is revealed in order to gain public support, before making their way into the huge Gaget, Gauthier & Cie workshop. Recreated for the first time in virtual reality thanks to in-depth historical research, this now-vanished building has been reborn in all its monumentality. A true industrial cathedral, the workshop bears witness to the tireless activity of almost six hundred workers, craftspeople and journeymen, who spend years working to create the copper colossus designed by Bartholdi. Visitors make their way past scaffolding and gigantic hand-hammered plates and take stock of the technical wonders that Gustave Eiffel invented in order to tackle the unprecedented challenges posed by such a huge monument.

About VIVE Arts
VIVE Arts (HTC) is a global arts and technology initiative redefining how culture is created, experienced, and preserved through the power of digital mediums. VIVE Arts commissions, produces, and distributes groundbreaking immersive experiences in partnership with world-class artists and institutions —expanding creative possibilities for artists and enabling institutions to animate cultural heritage in bold new ways that reach wider audiences. With unmatched expertise in the arts, culture, and technology, VIVE Arts empowers artists and institutions to harness immersive arts and technologies. This opens new modes of storytelling, experimentation, and exhibition and fosters a dynamic ecology for digital innovation in the arts, from creation through to distribution. Since its founding in 2017, VIVE Arts has realized more than 75 projects worldwide and stands at the forefront of advancing culture through technology.

Sarah McNaughton, Shea Seery, Lauren Gagnon
Resnicow and Associates
+1 212-671-5161
VIVEArts@resnicow.com