Since last October 4, the most famous Belgian reporter has been rewarded, within the four walls of the Arsenal contemporary art, with an immersive art experience in the name of Tintin, l’aventure immersive. The installations and the key work created using ingenious projections admirably honor the immense legacy left by Brussels cartoonist Georges Remi, alias Hergé.
Two introductory rooms welcome visitors after they have passed through the door of the Arsenal. The decor reminiscent of the volume We walked on the Moon and the mosaic of album covers in the series in all languages turn out to be nice, but nothing more. It is quickly understood that Tintin, l’aventure immersive is fundamentally not intended to be an informative or visually classic exhibition.
It’s the third room that steals the show, in another way.
Adventure is adventure
“Please fans current and lead young neophytes to appreciate the work of Hergé. » This is the mandate of Tintin, l’aventure immersive, detailed by Éric Brouillet, president of the VIBRANT Marketing studio which participated in the North American adaptation of the immersive art experience. The exhibition has already traveled across Europe in 2023 and 2024, and has brought together nearly a million visitors to the Old Continent.
Tintin, l’aventure immersive is constructed in six chapters drawing from Hergé’s 24 albums written between 1929 and the 1980s. Projections are seen on the four walls and on the floor of the immense room of several hundred square meters. The more the minutes go by, the more the desire to look everywhere and move around becomes felt, proof of the rich subtleties present in immersive art. Accompanied by Tintin and Snowy, but also Captain Haddock, Professor Tournesol and inspectors Dupont and Dupond, the public travels to Sydney, Tibet, the fictional republic of Syldavia and even on the surface of the Moon.
By omitting the few speech bubbles visible here and there, Tintin, l’aventure immersive manages to tell a coherent story without really respecting the chronology of the volumes, or without the audience even hearing a single sentence spoken by the characters, simply with the magic of visual arts.
The speakers in the room broadcast songs during the exhibition “that Hergé liked to listen to,” Mr. Brouillet had announced earlier. Suffice it to say that the Belgian cartoonist had excellent musical tastes, because the public is treated to pieces by David Bowie, Iggy Pop, the Beatles and Pink Floyd. The musical worlds fit perfectly with the visual worlds and make the moment all the more pleasant. Hats off to the instigators of the exhibition for paying the royalties of such significant artists.
It’s a shame, however, not to have heard the theme from the animated series – composed by Ray Parker and Tom Szczesniak – in the playlist, for an even more nostalgic experience.
After a full forty minutes which seems to have lasted only five, the projections on the walls give way to Hergé’s famous “blue pages”, synonymous with the end of the immersive experience.
Tintin is not just a children’s comic strip led by almost caricatured characters. Tintin is the reflection of a bygone century. It is, in 62 pages per album, the incarnation of the Western values of yesteryear and this sometimes too limited vision of a vast and different world. From American madness of grandeur to the setbacks of European colonialism, including the space race and the history of political tensions between the wars.
It’s all there.
A masterpiece like the 24 volumes of Adventures of Tintinit does not deteriorate, it ages like a good wine. And as long as cultural objects like Tintin, l’aventure immersive will continue to flourish almost 100 years after the first sketches of the intrepid Brussels native, we will be toasting the vintage for a long time to come.
