Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron is best known for his blockbuster filmmaking, but did you know he’s also a passionate deep sea explorer? His fascination with the deep oceans has taken him on eight major expeditions to the deep sea and on many submersible dives; he was the first solo diver to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, 11km below the waves; he was part of the first exploration of the interior of the wreck of RMS Titanic, and he can claim the first seafloor-to-surface live broadcast, too. Now he’s bringing another first to Sydney – a new immersive exhibition about his history-making expeditions.
Mr Cameron is visiting Sydney to officially open the exhibition called James Cameron – Challenging the Deep on May 29, which has been developed by the Australian National Maritime Museum in collaboration with the Avatar Alliance Foundation.
The exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the lens of Cameron’s underwater cameras, they’ll get to walk through a recreation of a MIR submersible, and they’ll get to explore inside the wreck of the Titanic, along with hand props and costumes from the 1997 film.
There’ll be large cinema-scale projections alongside rare artefacts, presenting the facts alongside fictional storytelling. It’ll feature diving helmets, re-breathers, lights and underwater voice communication technology from Cameron’s 1988 film The Abyss, as well as artefacts from the design and development of Deepsea Challenger – the submersible Cameron co-designed that was built in secret in Sydney.
The Museum is hoping Cameron’s fame will bring in more than 4,000 visitors from interstate and overseas to experience the exhibition that’ll run until January 2019.
James Cameron – Challenging the Deep opens to the public on Tuesday May 29. Tickets are $20 adults, $12 child/concession or $50 families.