Tour Dallin Museum from home

Details: By Susan Gilbert; Category: Arts; 16 May 2020

Dallin virtual tour screenshot.

Is this pandemic driving you stir-crazy and prohibiting you from enjoying our region’s cultural offerings? Good news -- you can now tour the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum virtually. Enjoy an uplifting and artful experience from the comfort of your own home, for free.

This virtual experience is engaging and educational. Visitors can appreciate the sculptures on a visual level, or get deeper into their history and significance through text, images and links. Viewers can also gain an appreciation for Cyrus Dallin’s life and work, the values that informed his art and the relevance of his legacy today.

“Despite the museum’s current closure, we remain committed to sharing Cyrus Dallin’s inspiring life and art with our community of Arlington and beyond. We hope this new tour, which was two years in the making, brings as much joy to our virtual visitors as we feel sharing it with them,” says Heather Leavell, museum director and curator.

Take a self-guided virtual tour

The virtual tour enables you to explore Dallin’s sculptures up close and learn the fascinating stories behind them. To access the tour:

Go to the Dallin Museum website, www.dallin.org.
On the bottom left, under Virtual Tour, click here!
You can view the tour in either 3-D or virtual reality. Both options are the same, but how you view them differs.

3-D – Click the Start Tour button, and enjoy a room-by-room tour. To navigate around the museum, follow the instructions below the screen.
Virtual Reality – To access the Virtual Reality tour, you need to download the Matterport app on your smart phone and insert your phone into a virtual reality viewer (such as Google glasses or VR glasses). Virtual reality immerses viewers inside the museum, providing a “standing-in” experience that can evoke feelings. It enables you to walk around each room, capturing its depth and to look above, below and around each piece of artwork.

How the virtual tour was created

Blue Immersive Media (BIM), an Arlington-based marketing company that focuses on innovation in marketing technology, created the 3-D digital twin of the Dallin Museum.

Two years ago, Michelle Moulin, BIM founder/president and Arlington Chamber of Commerce member, asked Beth Locke, Chamber of Commerce executive director, if any local nonprofits could benefit from a 3-D presentation. Locke suggested the Dallin Museum.

“When we looked at how we can help the community with our immersive technology, the Dallin Museum was an obvious fit – a nonprofit organization that needs exposure,” says Moulin.

“More and more museums now provide virtual reality tours. Before, only larger museums were able to do it, and I’m pleased that I can bring this technology to a small museum in Arlington. Now students from around the world can learn about Dallin and teachers can create lesson plans,” adds Moulin.

BMI provided all the work for free because, “We focus on doing good business in the community, balanced with volunteering our services,” says Moulin.

Users love it

Many people have already taken the virtual tour, and highly recommend it for both children and adults.

For example, Rebecca Reynolds, Manship Artists Residency + Studios founder and executive director, says, “The virtual tour is absolutely fabulous! I’d been craving a cultural fix and this tour means I don’t have to go farther than my home desk to find inspiration and insight.”

In addition, several retired Arlington High art teachers also laud the tour:

“The virtual tour is amazing,” says Nancy Muise.

“Impressive collection and presentation,” says Jan Eskadal.

New virtual reality resources at dallin.org

In addition to the virtual tour, the Dallin Museum also provides several new online educational opportunities for children and adults:

Virtual Picture Bingo – Enjoy an adventure through the Dallin Museum and see how many artworks you can find. This activity was designed specifically to accompany the virtual tour.
Memory Game – Learn about Dallin’s sculptures with this fun game of Concentration.
Make Your Own Modeling Dough – Be a sculptor, just like Dallin, with these easy recipes to create modeling dough.

To access these games:

Go to the Dallin Museum website, www.dallin.org.
Along the top of the screen, click the Virtual Learning tab.
Scroll halfway down the page to access the different games.

Dallin Museum

The Dallin Museum is grateful to the following sustaining sponsors whose support has made the virtual tour and many other museum experiences possible: Dan Johnson and Faye Kolhonen, Ken and Betsey Doherty, James and Misty Corey, Grant and Coleen Bennett, Winchester Co-operative Savings Bank and Century Bank.

The Cyrus Dallin Art Museum is dedicated to sharing the work of the celebrated American sculptor, educator and indigenous rights activist who lived and worked in Arlington for more than forty years. Best known for the iconic Appeal to the Great Spirit and Paul Revere monuments in Boston, Dallin’s many public sculptures bring beauty and a unique historical perspective to shared spaces across the nation.

For more information, visit www.dallin.org.