Portale

The monumental cast of a doorway and its original create a portal linking the V&A Cast Courts to the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, Italy. This is achieved by having, on each side, a projection of live video and audio feed of the other end of the portal: what is happening in Bologna would be shown in real time in London and vice versa. The goal is to provide the context that is inevitably missing in the museum, as there is just so much information that a simple label can supply. Seeing the setting of the original artefact, getting a sense of the scale of its building, hearing the sounds that surround it and even communicating with the people in its proximity contributes to a fuller, more authentic experience of that artefact which a simple museum presence could never achieve.