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Traveling through time across Indonesia at the National Museum
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360-degree immersion: Guests experience the National Museum’s ImersifA video mapping exhibit at its launch on March 31, 2022. (JP/Tunggul Wirajuda) (JP/Tunggul Wirajuda)
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em>ImersifA, an interactive exhibit at the National Museum, is designed to immerse visitors in various periods of Indonesian history, from the prehistoric era to the last years of Dutch colonial rule in the mid-20th century.
Visitors sat in the middle of the hall, their senses filled with a kaleidoscope of images and sounds from the video footage and narration surrounding them. Sabre-toothed tigers and mammoths roamed across a savanna evoking those in Africa, before the visual shifted to prehistoric men hunting elephants and other large herbivores.
At a glance, the all-encompassing experience might seem to belong in a natural history museum in New York or London. But in fact, the immersive experience was taking place in an exhibition hall at the National Museum, dubbed Museum Gajah (elephant museum) for the iconic elephant statue in its front courtyard.
Immersive history
The film and audio narration are part of ImersifA, a permanent exhibit at Building A of the National Museum in Central Jakarta. The 30-minute video mapping exhibit covers various eras in Indonesian history spanning thousands of years, from prehistory to the 1945 independence movement.
“It is an interactive tour that is designed to attract visitors, especially young people, which [explores] history and the past using contemporary means. The spectacle in the 12-by-21-meter room is 360 degrees and even extends to the floor to simulate being part of history,” says an article on the ImersifA exhibit published on the museum website.
“ImersifA shows the development of Indonesia’s natural environment, society, history and culture across various eras through the eyes [of the country’s] history makers. Like them, visitors can explore the treasures and diversity of Indonesia’s cultures, traditions and historic monuments, and then feel their emotions as they see these aspects in a new light,” it continues.
