Astra Museum VR Experience
About this good practice
It is a 3D animated world which shows various life events, landscape, nature, architecture, and local customs.
The idea of this project came in the context of the international trends in digitalizing tourism and various travel sectors. The Sars-Cov2 pandemic fastened and supported even more these trends. More than one year of lockdown and curfew triggered a huge need for the multimedia technology and virtual tours.
The Astra Open Air Museum in Sibiu sensed this need and took it as an opportunity. The applied for an EEA Grants project and received funds to implement the VR project. The main goal was to create a connection between the archaic rural life still present in many parts of Romania and the new technologized world. Thus, through this project the ASTRA Museum creates and amazing bond between two different types of worlds and facilitates the access of the community towards patrimony and heritage.
This is an innovative and creative project as it reveals a different type of an exhibition and a new way of approaching visitors. The stories the tourists can listen in their VR headsets are personally addresses, the tourists become part of that story, of a play or film. ASTRA VR is an emotional and sentimental story, a live representation of the daily life in a village.
The main stakeholder is the ASTRA Open Air Museum and this project is dedicated to all the tourists who visit it.
Resources needed
The project benefits from an non-refundable financial support of 606.997,60 Lei out of each 85% is the non-refundable eligible value from SEE Grants and 15% is the non-refundable eligible value from the national financing. The total value of the project is 786.977,60 Lei.
Evidence of success
The project was successful, and it manged to reach its main scope. During the implementation period, the VR exhibition was visited by 9000 tourists from Romania and international tourists.
The exhibition was promoted also with the help of a cultural program launched in the same period which consisted in 21 artisan and craftsmen workshops, gastronomic events, thematic fairs, and markets. The program brought together 236 specialists and 1556 participants.
Potential for learning or transfer
The success of this project demonstrates that it can become a good practice example for other similar museum or cultural institutions. The ASTRA VR project has helped the organizers to get some important results. They managed to bring to light the patrimony in the museum through a modern design with new techniques which attract especially young people, children, and teenagers.
The good results and the number of visitors should encourage other cultural institutions or museums to implement such a project and apply modern technology. The main goal of the project was to promote ethnography and museum heritage with the help of innovation. Such a project not only that will help a better promotion of the site but will increase people awareness for patrimony. The museum becomes an interactive, dynamic place of knowledge.
Such a project could be a premiere for any open-air museum/ exhibition. It will enable tourists to get information in a fun and entertaining way.