Tintin, l'aventure immersive

What you are looking at

A tall, dark hall has been turned into a giant comic strip. Its walls are divided into tall panels of saturated color, magenta, sky blue, red, purple and yellow, and in each one strides a character from The Adventures of Tintin, drawn in Hergé's clean, even line: Tintin himself in his blue sweater and plus-fours, Snowy the dog, the Thompson twins, a figure in a flowing purple coat that suggests Professor Calculus, and others. An iron staircase climbs across the wall in front of the projections, a row of old barrels is stacked beneath it, and the floor glows in squares of colored light. A visitor walking down the stairs passes in front of the projected figures and briefly becomes part of the picture.

Hergé and Tintin

Georges Prosper Remi (1907–1983), who signed his work Hergé, created Tintin in 1929 for a Belgian newspaper supplement. Over the next half century, 24 albums followed the young reporter and his dog around the world, from Congo and America to Tibet and the Moon. Hergé's style, later called the ligne claire or "clear line," uses an even contour, flat colors and almost no hatching. It is one of the most influential styles in European comics.

Tintinimaginatio, formerly Moulinsart, is the Brussels company that manages the commercial rights to Hergé's work. It adopted its current name in 2022, citing its interest in virtual and imaginary worlds, and immersive shows like this one are part of that strategy.

How immersive exhibitions work

Shows of this kind use dozens of synchronized projectors to animate artworks on every surface of a room, set to music. They became popular in the late 2010s with projections of Van Gogh, Klimt and Monet, and comics are especially suited to them: Hergé's flat colors and clear outlines stay crisp even when enlarged to the size of a building.

Close looking

Notice how the projection respects the comic grid. Each character gets his own panel of a single color, as if a page had been taken apart and pinned to the wall. The figures are shown mid-stride, all walking in the same direction, which gives the wall a sense of movement even in a still photograph. The barrels and staircase belong to the venue, but they echo the docks and ships of albums such as The Crab with the Golden Claws.

Dates and status

According to our records, the exhibition ran from 22 April to 7 May 2023; we have not confirmed the venue, and the show has been described as recurring. See other immersive and contemporary installations in Destination Cosmos and We Fight to Build a Free World, and the artist page for Hergé.