Thresholds is an ongoing touring exhibition that restages the world’s first major exhibition of photography. Visitors travel back in time to 1839, when British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot first presented his photographic prints to the public at King Edward’s School in Birmingham.

The experience is a fully immersive portal to the past; visitors can walk freely throughout a digitally reconstructed room, and are able to touch the bespoke vitrines, fixtures and mouldings; even the heat and scent of a coal fire is recreated. Infrared sensors track visitors’ movements, creating ghostly avatars that indicate their position and enhance the feeling of travelling through time. Collishaw has also created a soundscape to accompany the exhibition: the demonstrations of the Chartist protesters who rioted in 1839 on the streets of Birmingham, and who can be glimpsed through the digital windows.

Click here for images and video

Venues and tour dates:

Somerset House, London, 17th May 2017 – 11th June 2017 (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/press/mat-collishaw-thresholds)

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, 24th June 2017 – 6th August 2017 (https://matcollishawthresholds.eventbrite.com)

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, this Autumn (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/events/6c306889-6ecb-4e5b-ac5e-bb668563975b/pages/details)

The Bodleian Library, Oxford (dates tbc)

The National Science and Media Museum, Bradford (dates tbc)

The Florrie, Liverpool (dates tbc)