Immersive Van Gogh exhibit like the one in ‘Emily in Paris’ headed for Wichita
Why look at a Van Gogh painting when you can step into a Van Gogh painting?
A unique exhibit headed to Wichita titled “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” will give art lovers the ability to feel like they’re a part of the famous artist’s most well-known works. Tickets for the exhibit, which opens on Aug. 22, go on sale Thursday.
The exhibit will run at least through the end of the year inside the vacant retail space at 3535 N. Rock Road that was previously occupied by a Sears Outlet.
Put together by a Brussels-based business called Exhibition Hub, the exhibit uses 4K digital projection mapping to animate Van Gogh’s paintings and project them onto all four walls, enveloping the audience in the pieces.
Art fans may have seen photos taken at such exhibits, which have been staged in large cities across the world for the past seven years. Typically, they show people camped out on the floor of a large room, gazing upwards as recognizable patterns from a famous painting swirl around them. Exhibition Hub also does immersive exhibits with the paintings of Klimt and Monet and also has one about dinosaurs.
John Zaller, the executive producer for the exhibit, said that the show coming to Wichita will have a special focus on “Sunflowers,” a series of Van Gogh still-life paintings, since Wichita is in the Sunflower State. But Van Gogh fans will be able to see many more of the painter’s works in a new way.
They’ll also be able to learn more about the artist, a Dutch post-impressionist painter active from 1880s until his death in 1890 whose most famous works include “The Starry Night,” “The Potato Eaters,” “Bedroom in Arles” and his “Sunflowers” series.
“We’ve had our sights set on Wichita for a while now,” Zaller said in a phone interview this week. “We know there’s a lot of interest in Van Gogh in the market. We also know it’s a place that really supports arts and culture.”
A special touch for the Sunflower State
The exhibit, which will take up more than 20,000 square feet, features different components set up in several different galleries.
Visitors will first see several museum-style galleries that focus on Van Gogh’s life and works, including a projection of his self portraits onto a nine-foot tall bust of the artist plus a documentary about his color blindness.
-e0fa65-original-1639742951.png "412127-VG_(Antwerp)-e0fa65-original-1639742951.png")
The “crown jewel” of the experience, Zaller said, is the 5,000-square-foot immersive gallery, where visitors can stop to watch a progression of the artist’s paintings as they’re digitally animated and projected onto 20-foot walls.
There’s also a gallery where people who’ve paid an extra $5 put on virtual reality headsets and feel like they’re walking through eight of Van Gogh’s paintings, including “Bedroom at Arles” and “The Starry Night.”
“It’s kind of like the grand finale of the show where you put on a headset and you actually see the world through Van Gogh’s eyes, walking through the south of France with the artist, seeing the countryside he loved so much turn into his most iconic paintings,” Zaller said.
The company is even adding on a special feature for Wichita audiences: a sunflower gallery that includes physical sunflowers, intended to make visitors feel like they’re walking through the sunflower fields that inspired Van Gogh.
Visitors also will be able to visit Van Gogh’s “studio” and create their own artworks, which will be added to the walls. There will also be a gift shop selling Van Gogh-themed merchandise.
The exhibit is self-guided, Zaller said, and the typical visitor gets through it in 60 to 90 minutes. The experience is appropriate for all ages, he said, and because of the educational components it includes, it’s especially good for school groups.
Museum techniques, high tech
The first immersive Van Gogh experience was staged in Europe in the 2000s, but demand for such exhibits in the United States soared after a 2020 episode of the Netflix series “Emily in Paris” featured the characters visiting such an exhibit in Paris.
After that, several different companies started producing and touring their own versions of the exhibit, using names such as “Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition,” “Van Gogh Alive,” and “Immersive Van Gogh.”
Zaller said that Exhibition Hub, whose U.S. headquarters are in Atlanta, began touring its Van Gogh exhibit in 2017, starting in Naples and taking it through Europe and the Middle East before bringing it to the United States in 2021. Since then, he said, the show has made stops in about 30 different U.S. markets. At the moment, it’s also playing in Worcester, Massachusetts; Knoxville, Tennessee; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Tampa.
Zaller said that several educational components make his company’s show stand out. Although the immersive room is the star of the show, the exhibit also incorporates traditional museum setups and advances a strong narrative of Van Gogh’s tragic life, which was filled with bouts of mental illness and ended when he committed suicide in 1890.
“His personal story, his own struggles with mental health and his own challenges in finding this calling is something we can all relate to and be inspired by,” Zaller said. “His work certainly is immortal.”
“Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience”
When: Aug. 22 through at least the end of the year. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and Mondays and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays. The exhibit will be closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Where: 3535 N. Rock Road, Suite 100
Tickets: Are on sale at vangoghexpo.com/wichita. Tickets are $32.90 for adults ages 13 and over; $28.90 for seniors ages 65 and older; $21.90 for students ages 13 to 26 with student ID and members of the military; and $25.90 for ages 4-12. Tickets are free for children under 4. VIP tickets also are available.
Extra: Tickets to the exhibit’s virtual reality headset experience are $5 extra
For more information: visit vangoghexpo.com/wichita
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 11:16 AM.
.jpg)