Georgetown Art Center Offers Visitors a Virtual Reality Version of Latest Exhibit

The Georgetown Art Center is offering visitors a virtual reality version of their latest exhibit.

“Social Justice” presented by artist Richard Laurent focuses on issues prevalent in today’s society, the Georgetown Art Center wrote.

“…Gender inequality, cultural biases, and specific subjects linked to social justice including human trafficking, child marriage, and honor killing,” according to the organization’s website. “This exhibition represents Richard Laurent’s personal journey to understand cross-cultural criminal traditions. This work represents his efforts as an artist to help turn these “human wrongs” into human rights.”

Now, in addition to seeing those works of art in person, the virtual reality experience allows visitors to experience the exhibit wherever they’re at and on any device.

“For me, it’s really an accessibility thing,” Stuart Wallace, President of Georgetown Art Works, the nonprofit that runs the Georgetown Art Center, told Hello Georgetown. “I really wanted to be able to provide an opportunity for everyone to see our shows from the comfort of their own home.”

The virtual reality experience allows viewers to walk through the Georgetown Art Center, view each piece of the exhibit up close and even view a description and price for each piece of art. In the future, Wallace said, the art center would love to offer viewers the opportunity to buy the artwork they’re seeing right from the virtual experience.

Virtual Reality Exhibit of “Social Justice” by artist Richard Laurent

“Where you can go ahead and click to buy,” Wallace told Hello Georgetown. “You’re looking at a painting and click, and add it to your cart. Because that was another big thing that we did as part of our COVID pivot. We have an online store now with the gift shop items, and exhibit art. So hopefully, if we get some funding down the road, we can integrate all of those together seamlessly.”

Ultimately, Wallace said, the art center would love to continue offer virtual reality experiences for future exhibits and there are ways people can help to support this and other efforts by the organization.

“Becoming a member of the Georgetown Art Center is a super accessible thing that people can do to help. Membership is a really big deal for us,” Wallace said. “We are a nonprofit, so 99% of the time, when people give to us, it’s a tax deductible thing. If you become a member, then you can become a board member, you can serve on committees. We just need all the help that we can get in terms of people power and financial donations.”

“Social Justice,” will be available to view in person through July 18th and the virtual reality exhibit will be available to view for a year or more after the exhibit ends.

For more information about the exhibit, visit the Georgetown Art Center’s website. You can view the virtual reality exhibit by visiting this link.