The spirit of Frida Kahlo comes alive with a new Multimedia Experience at her cherished home, Casa Azul in Coyoacan. Taking visitors on an unparalleled journey through her home, the beloved artist’s life is unwrapped through her writings, sketches, photos, and favorite treasures. The Museo Frida Kahlo and Antenna International, the world’s leader in audio and multimedia tours, are honored to launch the first handheld interactive experience of Casa Azul. The tour is available in both Spanish and English and guides visitors through Frida’s home and garden.
Guided by the audio and visuals in the hour-long digital experience, visitors can explore Casa Azul like never before, learning new insights into both the artist and her creativity in an intimate setting. Users of the new app have an exceptional opportunity to learn about Frida’s daily life, close companions, favorite possessions, political passions, romantic pursuits, and intellectual interests, offering a multi-dimensional understanding of all that informed her work.
As visitors explore the home, garden and outbuildings, the multimedia tour offers opportunities to dive deeper into Frida’s story through “touch and learn” hotspots which are activated by pressing icons on the handheld player’s screen. First, a captivating audio overview of the dining room chronicles the raucous dinner parties Frida hosted for a myriad of famous guests. Next, smaller objects from around the room appear on the screen and visitors are encouraged to search for these special objects and learn their secret stories. In the night bedroom, the most poignant of these objects is the pre-Hispanic frog container; unbeknownst to many visitors, this is her final resting place- her ashes rest deep inside, as the mesmerizing narration explains. The audio narration delves even deeper into the romantic intricacies of her life and continues to tell the secret significance of this distinct frog shaped container.
Rare photographs and videos teach visitors about Frida’s strong will and ability to turn her misfortunes into artistic creativity. Interpretation on the state-of-the-art touchscreen device includes multimedia stops about personal items that she used after her accident, ephemera previously hidden away for more than fifty years at the request of Diego Rivera, and archival film footage of Frida and Diego with Leon Trostsky in the stunning gardens of Casa Azul.
Writer Christine Murray explained working with the archival materials, “What a vivid and witty writer [Frida] was! Fortunately, we had unlimited access to all of her letters, diaries, poetry, notes to herself, banking memos, even the things she wrote on the backs of photos . The tour is structured in a way that visitors are constantly hearing directly from the artist herself. If you think her paintings are original, her writing is fierce.”
Further enhancing the experience are two a games for both children and adults. In the first game, players are sent on a scavenger hunt to discover and retrieve “treasures” hidden throughout the grounds by Fulang Chang, Frida’s naughty monkey. In the second activity, visitors make music with virtual conch shells; these shells are based on the ones that decorate the terraces at Casa Azul and evoke an ancient Aztec music tradition.
Located in one of the oldest and most beautiful neighborhoods in Mexico City, the beauty of Casa Azul is captured in the stunning interface design. The vibrant colors of the home guided the design process, with colors and textures from the actual building used directly in the design as backgrounds, navigations bars and headers. This works in tandem with lively elements from Frida’s’s paintings, as well as sound effects, original songs from Frida’s time and bespoke music. The Spanish version of the guide is narrated by one of Latin America’s premiere actresses, Angelica Aragon. Interviews with Hilda Trujillo, the museum’s director, and Carlos Phillips Olmedo, the Executive Director of the Dolores Olmedo Museum, The Anahuacalli and the Frida Kahlo Museum, add details and anecdotes to the richness of the guide.
Antenna brings its world-leading expertise in handheld mobile device design to custom-make a solution that transforms 100 Samsung Galaxy devices from individual to mass-use; with smart, elegant and robust casings that secure/protect the devices while reflecting a contemporary aesthetic. Supporting the devices is Antenna’s DataCharger, the revolutionary new device-charging, uploading and storage facility, setting new standards in onsite device management. Antenna’s creative services include, the multimedia app design, script writing and recording, sound design, game development and video editing.
Antenna is delighted to have worked with the museum to capture Kahlo’s identity, share her story, and enhance the visitor experience, at one of the most visited museums in Mexico.
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