Sunflowers and Starry nights.

Vincent van Gogh Experience comes alive I've always been drawn to the fantastic artwork of Vincent Van Gogh. I love the way he pioneered his own style. I admire his brave honesty about his mental illness. So of course, as soon as I heard about the Van Gogh alive exhibition, I had to go! A construction has been set up in the piazza, a square in media city. Its near to the Lowry Theatre, a little shopping outlet and various cafes, such as, pret a manger. We stopped off first to meet up with my cousin who, due to the pandemic, I'd not seen for over 2 years, so it was great to see her. Pret a Manger was brightly lit and is all on one level so is good for wheel chair users. We were at the window seat table. It did have a pole on the underside, in the middle of the table, which wasn't great. The height was good. The cafe was busy and noisy with coffee machines whirring, microwaves pinging, Christmas music playing on the radio and people talking. I was a bit concerned we wouldn't hear each other, but thankfully we did. When I went to the loo, I sighed, seeing long queue that snaked through the cafe, expecting the usual grumbles from people when I asked them to step aside. Surprisingly, people moved out of the way without fuss so I could get through. The disabled toilet, although not a changing places facility, was big enough to turn in. The entire bathroom was all white, even the bars, so not great for visually impaired people as it was confusing what was where. Then, refuelled, it was off to Van Gogh alive! as media city is a relatively new development, its very accessible. To get into Van Gogh alive, we went up a dark ramp (👍 on the colour contrast). After security checked our bags and tickets, we went into the information exhibition first. This had standing static boards with interesting snippets about Van Gogh pictures of the accompanying art work. I couldn't see them, so my mum asked the member of staff, 'excuse me, do you have audio description headphones, please?' 'Err, what's that?' 'For blind people. It describes what's going on.' 'Oh. No, we don't, sorry.' 'I thought this was meant to be a multi-sensory thing? That’s what it was advertised as.' I muttered as we headed to a stand so my mum could read it out to me. It was when we were on the 2nd stand, that my mum said, reading the info, ' I wonder what "scan here" means?' I shrugged. We asked another member of staff, who told us, 'you just hold your phone or tablet camera over the sign and press on the hyperlink, and it'll read all the information out.' This was amazing! This little accessibility feature made the trip much more enjoyable. My mum said, as well as an audio player, it also read it out in british sign language. It was a great way to learn about Van Gogh's life, what triggered his talent, the friends who inspired him and his tragic mental illness breakdown, that lead to his suicide in 1890. The audio also described the pictures, which was great as I could visualise the colours in each scene. Whilst in the asylum, Van Gogh painted his bedroom from home from memory. The exhibition creators have re-imagined this in a 3D form you can touch. The attention to detail is so good! Even the slightly distorted, slanted angles of the furniture! After listening to the descriptions, we went through to the second part of the exhibition. In here loud instrumental music played as Van Gogh's more famous paintings , such as the Oslo self-portrait, Starrey night and the sunflowers slid around the differently size screens that lined the pathway to the next parts. I enjoyed this, especially as on one of the projected images, I could kind of see it enough to recognise. The third part was just beautiful. We turned from the fast, energetic pace of the last sensory experience into the tranquillity of a field of sunflowers (I know, in November, in Manchester!). The organisers had arranged the walkway into the next part with Rows upon rows of yellow sunflowers that, like the bedroom scene in the first exhibition, you could reach out and touch. The surrounding mirrors gave it an endless feel. The fourth part had lovely panpipe music playing as the lesser known pieces slid across differently sized screens at a much slower pace than the previous one. I found this particular section just mesmerising and stayed there a while, almost hypnotised by the artwork, it had such a relaxing atmosphere. Van Gogh alive ended with a shop. Here you could buy biscuits, tea towels, clothing and, my favourite, your very own sunflower! As we strolled around the exhibition, I could definitely see how Vincent van Gogh still, to this day, influences my artwork, with his use of blues and yellows, and Textures and, how he found inspiration in nature. I thoroughly enjoyed the Vincent Van Gogh experience. It really was fully immersive and fantastic for the senses with visuals of the art, audio both a voice over to read out the Vincent van Gogh's life, as well as music I imagine Van Gogh would've danced to. It was great the way you could actually touch the objects, like the bedroom scene and sunflowers. We ended our trip with a delicious lunch at ‘box on the docks’ Van Gogh alive is on until January 2022 at Media City, Salford Quays Manchester.