Liberty For All Five years and $100 million in the making is the new, 26,000-square-foot Statue of Liberty Museum. That the new museum is tied to the single most iconic symbol of immigration in United States histor y makes its mission all the more challenging at the moment. The self-standing museum’s designers relied heavily on AV technology to help them tell a uniquely, singularly American stor y. Inside, three main gallery spaces create a flowing narration. It starts with the Immersive Theater, a stand-up cinema in which videos describe the statue’s origins and its journey to New York Harbor. Then, it’s on to a galler y on the building of the statue, with exhibits illuminating sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi’s studio, the models and molds used to make the statue, and a replica of its foot; there are also explanations of how iconic the statue
has come to be, with items like a menorah on which each candle holder is a small Lady Liberty, as well as comic-book art, license plates and dolls. In the final section, visitors, using interactive touchscreen kiosks, are encouraged to take digital self-portraits and add their thoughts on what liberty means to them. Well-known AV integrator Diversified was brought onto the project by ESI Design, the experience-design firm behind the new museum’s exhibits, as its technology partner; later, the firm contracted directly with the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation (SOLEIF) as the AV integrator. (What made this project different from most was that ever yone on the job could trace their family back to a generation that sailed past Liberty Island, and likely even stopped at the nearby Ellis Island immigrationprocessing center.)
The brand new Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island. Courtesy Kevin Daley, National Parks Service.
42 Sound & Communications July 2019