Drone Image of Phnom Da (2022-11-21) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
In partnership with the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and the Angkor Borei Museum, CMA took visitors on a journey to Cambodia via the immersive, mixed-reality HoloLens exhibition Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain (on view 11/14/2021-1/30/2022).
Krishna Exhibition Visitor Observing (2022-11-22) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
Although CMA has a long history of using digital tool sets to spark relationships with art, this is the first time the museum has created immersive experiences in a special exhibition, having been shaped by collaboration and innovation from all departments and staff in some way.
Through two sculptural and four digital galleries, Revealing Krishna transports visitors to the dramatic floodplains of southern Cambodia and tells the life story of the CMA’s monumental sculpture Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan, spanning 1,500 years and three continents.
The Peak of Phnom Da (2011-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
Journey to Phnom Da
Visitors entered the exhibition through the waterways of Cambodia, surrounded by three walls of video taken with a three-camera rig by boat and drone footage of Phnom Da.
Journey to Phnom Da
Traveling the route pilgrims would have taken through the Mekong River delta, the immersive projection hallway recreates the local landscape through image and sound, from monks chanting at a nearby temple to local fauna on the river.
HoloLens Experience: Station 2 (2021-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
The Story of the Cleveland Krishna
The second immersive gallery was dedicated to a HoloLens 2 tour, the first of its kind. Wearing a HoloLens headset, visitors physically followed the life story of the CMA Krishna through a Mixed Reality landscape in 6 stations.
CMA Krishna Digital Rendering (2021-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Krishna Reinstated on Phnom Da
The tour culminated in a life-size holographic projection of the temple on Phnom Da. Visitors explored a high-resolution model of the temple at scale with ambient sound, with an artist’s rendering of Krishna as he might have originally looked before years of wear and tear.
Sculptures of Phnom Da (2021-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
Sculptures of Phnom Da
After the cave melts away and the HoloLens headset has been removed, enter the main gallery with the context needed to fully encounter the Cleveland and Phnom Penh Krishnas, newly restored and on view together for the first time.
Gods of Phnom Da (2021-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
Gods of Phnom Da
Though only four of the original eight sculptures from Phnom Da could travel to Cleveland, all eight were on view digitally, in life-size gesture-based interactives were created using photogrammetry and lidar scanning.
Global Journeys: Immersive Timeline (2021-11) by The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art
Global Journeys
The exhibition concluded with an immersive timeline exploring the impact of global history on and the diplomacy surrounding the sculptures of Phnom Da, narrated by director, actor, and humanitarian Angelina Jolie and author Loung Ung (First They Killed My Father).
