Thanks to generous funding, the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands has partnered with Dragonfly 360, a Cayman-based digital marketing and video production company, to produce virtual tours of NGCI’s temporary exhibitions— starting with the inaugural Cayman Islands Biennial, Cross Currents. This creative collaboration allows NGCI to display exhibitions on our website and extend our programming to the widest possible audience. At the same time, these virtual tours will help us create a living archive and a visual record of our past projects.
With the ability to tilt and rotate as well as zoom in and out, the Dragonfly 360 tour allows viewers to fully immerse themselves in the exhibition space. In addition to seamlessly moving through the galleries, this new technology includes a bird’s eye view of NGCI’s floorplan, as well as a three-dimensional ‘dollhouse’ feature in which walls and ceilings are cut away to provide a cross-section perspective. Extending the interactivity of the user experience even further, highlight buttons allow viewers to click and read pop-up wall texts of each featured artwork, while also incorporating descriptive videos for select pieces. This virtual technology was especially useful given the scope and scale of the inaugural Biennial, which was installed across multiple spaces and venues.
Further 360-degree filming is already in the pipeline, with the Bendel Hydes retrospective- an exhibition spanning fifty years of work- next on the list. The recording of that show is just as important given the once-in-a-generation nature of the retrospective, which features a mix of works shipped from the artist’s personal collection in New York and loans from some twenty-five private collectors. NGCI is excited to develop this creative partnership further and we look forward to sharing our exhibitions remotely with audiences at home and abroad. To see the newly launched 360-degree tour of Cross Currents visit the exhibition page and click ‘virtual tour’.
