The Brooklyn Museum has recently unveiled Monet and Venice. Featuring 100 works from Monet and contemporaries including John Singer Sargent and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the exhibition will run through February 1, 2026.
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To prepare visitors for this journey, the Museum commissioned Hyperquake’s Experiences Team to transform its soaring central rotunda into a multisensory prelude. The result is an immersive environment that embodies Monet’s enveloppe concept.
“I wanted to create an introductory moment in the exhibition that would transport visitors to Venice and surround them with the vistas, shimmering reflections, and magnificent architecture that enchanted Monet in 1908,” said Lisa Small, senior curator of European art at the Brooklyn Museum. “We are thrilled with the final result, as is our audience, who are enjoying this meditative and beautiful environment as an integral prelude to Monet and Venice.”
“Monet famously said that Venice was too beautiful to be painted, yet his works reveal its essence through light and atmosphere,” explained Hyperquake’s Experiential creative director Mary Franck. “Our goal was to immerse visitors in Venice so they could see what Monet saw and experience for themselves the play of light and color through the day, making the exhibit visceral and accessible to visitors.”
Challenged to transform the Museum’s central rotunda that would immerse visitors within Monet’s Venice before they ever saw a painting, an elemental focus on moving images led them to Venice‑based videographer Joan Porcel Studio. Together, they created a five-minute panoramic video journey that transports viewers through a day, from sunrise to sunset.
To envelope visitors within this evolving Venetian scenery, Hyperquake designed the rotunda’s physical space, including seating and wall placement. Projection-mapped across four freestanding wall—seach over 10 feet tall—and two 24‑foot rotunda projections, the theatrical experience also features caustic lighting animating the dome above, with rippling water patterns cascading across the floor.
Heightening the multisensory experiences, through Hyperquake’s collaboration with the Museum’s former composer-in-residence Niles Luther, visitors hear a custom soundtrack layered with field recordings from Venice, which complements the exhibition’s original symphony. As a final stroke, a custom fragrance created by Joya Studio infuses the rotunda with atmospheric scent.
All of these thoughtful touches combine to complete the sensation of standing at the edge of an expansive canal or waterway in Venice. With Hyperquake leading the design and integration, while overseeing AV installation and projection studies to maximize impact, the result is a seamless integration of physical and digital storytelling that invites visitors to experience the same interplay of sensations that captivated Monet during his time in Venice.
“In short,” added Franck, “we’ve created a multisensory entry experience that contextualizes Monet’s Venetian works, deepening visitor understanding to ensure guests arrive in the gallery attuned to his artistic innovations.”
