The ‘Beautiful Journey’ Opens at Santa Barbara Museum of Sensory & Movement Experiences 

An exciting and thought-provoking exhibition opens on Saturday, February 22, at the Art Fund’s Museum of Sensory & and Movement Experiences (MSME). If you haven’t been to the museum to see its regular collection, I encourage a visit to their space in La Cumbre Plaza. If you’ve been lucky enough to have found the museum already, another visit will provide new rewards.

The latest immersive installation at the museum is titled Beautiful Journey, and it places you in fantastical landscapes while guiding you on a peaceful mediation by mixing VR technology, renderings by gifted artists and an exploration in consciousness and psychology. Visitors are offered a comfortable chair, fitted with the latest VR headsets, and instructed on their use. Take time to listen to your breathing and relax while taking in the scenery, or you can rush past in search of the next chapter. Like life, it’s up to you.

I was left alone within the experience that lasted approximately 20 minutes, but it seemed much shorter. I was encouraged to concentrate on my breathing and my inner voice when asked gentle questions from the virtual guide about meaningful moments in my own life’s journey. Without spoiling the adventure, I can tell you that you enter the world at birth and then are placed in a boat on a river or sometimes a sea and float peacefully through three stages of life: childhood, career, and family, then everything after that. Culminating in a riveting near-death experience, the environment slowly dissolves, and you see your real-time environment around you. I left feeling a renewed sense of gratitude and connection with people who played important roles in my life. Over the following week, I found myself revisiting the questions posed in the Journey and contemplating my answers more introspectively while also gaining insights into my behaviors. It’s been a while since a work of art has moved me like that.