Great news for all young Egyptologists: there’s a wonderfully educational temporary exhibition currently running in London devoted to all things Ancient Egypt, that offers genuine insight into this most iconic of cultures via its informative displays and genuine awe via the copious numbers of thousands of years old artefacts on display.
But enough about the Young V&A’s excellent Making Egypt exhibition. I’m here to talk about Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, a globe-trotting VR-enhanced attraction nominally devoted to the eponymous boy king of the eighteenth dynasty.
How to put this? I’m not sure you’re likely to learn a lot, and there is something slightly dispiriting about the early sections, which are basically a standard museum-style experience except all the objects on display are gaudy replicas. I never really felt like I found out that much about Tutankhamun or the culture he came from at all, though the exhibition is better on Howard Carter, the eccentric British archaeologist who located the tomb in 1922.
However, after a couple of rooms, it gives up pretending to be a straight-up exhibition. In rapid succession we’re hit by a balls trippy 30-minute immersive film vaguely themed around Egyptian myths of creation and death; an even weirder VR film in which we’re cast as Tutankhamun himself, newly woken up in the afterlife; a ‘holographic’ film about mummification; and a more immersive second VR in which we can potter around the big man’s tomb.
It kept my kids interested for about two-and-a-half hours, which is a pretty huge win
I’m going to be absolutely honest with you and say that what I really, really liked about Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition is that when you add all these bits together it basically kept my kids interested for about two-and-a-half hours, which is a pretty huge win for a London family attraction. Yes, you’ll learn a lot more at Making Egypt; but it’ll only take about an hour to learn it. Toss in the journey time to Immerse LDN – an adjunct of the ExCel Centre – and you’ve got yourself a full day out, baby!
Is it ‘good’ then? Well… it’s very diverting. The surreal iconography of Ancient Egypt is fertile territory, imaginatively exploited, and while none of the immersive sections are necessarily showstoppers worth the entire trip individually, there is something genuinely impressive about the cumulative impact of having four nifty techy bits in a row. Certainly, it far exceeds the immersive capabilities of any given London museum.
I think you could give yourself a breakdown fretting over whether Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition is meaningfully educational. At the very least, it propagates the idea that Ancient Egypt was very cool, and isn’t that the most important thing?
