Terracotta Warriors

Immersive experience sets the scene for WA Museum’s boldest exhibition.

Western Australia Museum
7.5
month exhibition
180k
visitors

S1T2’s opening immersive experience for the Western Australian Museum’s exhibition Terracotta Warriors: Legacy of the First Emperor sets the tone for an encounter with ancient China. Through immersive audio and expansive wraparound projection mapping, audiences were transported 2,000 years into the past to build a deeper understanding of China’s first emperor. Acting as a threshold moment, the experience situates visitors within the historical and emotional context of the stories and objects to come, preparing them for a deeper engagement with one of the world’s most extraordinary archaeological legacies.

Terracotta Warriors archaeology in-situ background image.

Introducing the world of the Terracotta Warriors

Brief

When WA Museum Boola Bardip secured a rare delegation of eight Terracotta Warriors – alongside more than 225 artefacts – it provided an opportunity for Australian audiences to encounter one of China’s most significant cultural treasures. Our goal was to create an opening experience that would give context to this epic exhibition, immersing visitors in the world and legacy of China’s prolific First Emperor.

Immersed in the epoch of China’s First Emperor

Concept

While the Terracotta Warriors are well known, the context they come from is often overlooked. In designing the opening immersive for the WA Museum’s exhibition, our goal was to use projection mapping and real-time immersive content to make the ancient world of China’s First Emperor feel alive – transforming dry dates and distant facts into something audiences would not just understand, but feel.

A spatial approach to projection mapping

Spatial

One of the key things we wanted to do with this piece was adopt a more spatial approach to immersive projection mapping. The goal was for our storytelling to compliment the story itself. So we set about orchestrating a combination of projection surfaces to move audiences from intimate connection to spectacular experience.

As the first experience of the WA Museum’s Terracotta Warriors exhibition, this would serve a key orienting role for visitors. It needed to communicate key facts and dates that would ground visitors in the epoch they’re about to explore.

On a low, central projection table we would visualise this key factual information in a more concrete, spatialised experience. A simple map becomes a 3D landscape, where borders shift with the movement of miniature armies, where cultural changes are reflected in the environment itself.

Man and woman stand facing Terracotta Warrior on wraparound projection mapping experience for Western Australia Museum.

We would then augment this central display with more emotive content on the surrounding wraparound projections. Here we would set the scene, transporting visitors into the world of the exhibition. At times this might convey subtle atmospheric content. At others, the focus might shift from below to reveal moments of scale and grandeur that punctuate the unfolding story.

S1T2 team tests projection mapping software for opening immersive experience in Terracotta Warriors exhibition.

Concept art of ghostly Terracotta Warriors background image.

Stories told by an unusual narrative voice

Story

When developing the experience script, we worked closely with historians and experts at the WA Museum, who provided the dates, facts and information that visitors would need to absorb. But when it came to delivering this content, we wanted to move away from the default omniscient museum tone. Instead, we proposed adopting the terracotta warriors themselves as narrative voice. We imagined these warriors as not only protectors of the First Emperor, but also this ancient epoch of Chinese history – and thus the perfect guides to orient visitors and move them through the story.

Art direction driven by texture + materiality

Art

When it came to art direction, the visual mood was meditative, reverent, monumental. This would be an opportunity for visitors to step into the liminal realm of the warriors; a place between heaven and earth. The idea was to evoke the feeling of a memory or a dream rather than a literal depiction.

Key to this was exploring materiality and texture to support the narrative while providing a consistent throughline between the table and wall projections. Terracotta clay, hammered bronze patina, jade green were all key to creating an aesthetic that felt aged and tactile yet expressive.

Motion choreographs a cinematic narrative

Motion

Across both our immersive projection surfaces, motion played a key role in bringing the story of the First Emperor and his world to life. Motion unfolds slowly and deliberately, allowing room for our narration to breathe. At key points, sudden impact moments – like the drop of a sword or an abrupt movement – shatter the calm, sharply shifting the tone and emotional atmosphere.

Balancing storytelling, focus + immersion

Details

On the wraparound projection, recognisable silhouettes float in space, gently rotating, as if suspended in time. Elements break apart into dust, shards, or particles then reassemble into new forms. A richly textured, evocative backdrop, emerging as a focal point for key narrative beats.

Meanwhile the table delivers a more detailed vantage point, anchoring visitors in the facts and events of history. A constantly evolving map visible from an overhead perspective, with land, regions and settlements in constant motion. Motion graphics highlight finer details – troops move in concert, arrows fly in battle, towns disappear into floods.

Young family looks at real-time projection mapping table created by experience design studio S1T2.

Launching a landmark immersive exhibition

Results

Overall, Terracotta Warriors: Legacy of the First Emperor was a ground-breaking exhibition for Western Australia Museum Boola Bardip, welcoming over 100,000 visitors in the first eight weeks. Within this context, S1T2’s opening immersive elevated the idea of a didactic introductory video into a compelling and emotive experience. Playing with expectations in form and content, it introduced dry facts and figures to underpin visitor understanding, but in a way that established the wonder, tactility and spectacle to come.