Titanic: The Exhibition (Imagine Exhibitions, Chicago, USA)
Imagine Exhibition's valiant Titanic attempt falls significantly short of delivering an immersive experience and is marred by deliberate attempts to mislead visitors.
This is a review of the Titanic Exhibition in Chicago, created by Imagine Exhibitions, set to tour around the US from the beginning of 2025.
The experience starts with a tried-and-tested approach: each visitor receives a vaguely representative boarding pass with a real passenger, allowing for a personalised journey through the ship’s storied decks. The exhibition builds up to a wall that reveals the fate of the assigned passenger.
However, the journey through the exhibition is almost immediately haphazard, with no clear narrative flow, detracting from the emotional or educational potential. Worse than the clumsy flow is the exhibition’s heavy reliance on tired and lazy tropes, including a two-dimensional demonisation of J. Bruce Ismay and near-messianic portrayal of Captain Smith and designer Thomas Andrews. Throughout, we are presented with a simplistic narrative that overlooks the complexities of the disaster and the variety of human experiences involved.
The audio guide—a paid extra—intended to enhance the visitor experience adds no value whatsoever. In fact, it often conflicts with the information on the display boards, which were themselves further muddled by endless grammatical and spelling errors. These inaccuracies extend to the basic facts presented, with notable errors such as “Arrow gantry” instead of Arrol gantry and “Queenstow” instead of Queenstown, which will likely frustrate history enthusiasts.
Adding to the disappointment is the ‘Virtual Reality Experience’ at the end—another optional paid extra—which failed to meet even modest expectations. It was a cheap, poorly produced, 90s-style computer simulation, resembling more of a high school IT project than anything close to a ‘Virtual Reality Experience’. The inexcusable quality was worse than the still-excellent but now-outdated 1996 point-and-click game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time. It offers absolutely nothing to even the newest Titanic enthusiast.
Meanwhile, replicas and recreations, rather than genuine Titanic artefacts, were deliberately misrepresented throughout and sought to confuse visitors into a false sense of awe. No matter where you stand on the artefacts debate, there are none from Titanic here. Artefacts, mostly from other White Star Line ships, are randomly placed, creating a disjointed tour that left me confused and sometimes disengaged.
That extended to one of the last galleries which claimed to contain props and costumes from James Cameron’s 1997 mega-hit, Titanic. I was immediately dubious that a touring exhibition in Chicago would have the real Heart of the Ocean, but it was glaringly evident that some of these items were fake, and not even good fakes. The costumes they claimed were Jack and Rose’s are, in fact, $50 dress-up costumes from Amazon. (h/t @LA Beadles)
This blatant attempt to mislead visitors left me questioning the authenticity of the entire exhibition.
On a brighter note, the Discovery Gallery offered a touch of innovation with a glass floor overlaying sand and broken plates—replicas that, while not claimed as real, successfully evoke the underwater grave of the Titanic. This feature and the decent replicas of corridors, staterooms and the grand staircase offer a fleeting emotional connection to the tragedy. These efforts are more impressive given this is a touring exhibition that must be set up, taken down, relocated—rinse and repeat.
However, it should be noted that the photos of the staircase used in Imagine Exhibition’s promotional material is not the staircase on display.
There were several seemingly genuine bids to showcase new Titanic details. One of the more intriguing artefacts featured is the original United States Senate Inquiry Report into the disaster. This comprehensive document, produced in the immediate aftermath of the sinking, was the first attempt to understand the regulatory oversights and human errors that contributed to the tragedy. Seeing this on display is quite remarkable—I’ve never seen it featured in an exhibition before. Although only the front page was visible, you could get a sense of the weight of history and the wealth of insight that followed the tragedy, making it a unique and valuable piece for historians and enthusiasts.
Other notable items included a rare White Star Line flag and an array of the liner’s promotional materials, such as Cadbury’s chocolate tins, matchboxes, postcards, and more. These showcased the company’s branding and marketing efforts whilst providing a tangible connection to the everyday luxuries that were part of the ship’s historical narrative.
Although the Heart of the Ocean and costumes were definitively fake, some items from the 1997 film seemed genuine, including one lifejacket, which was altered with metal balls to pull actors down the deck of Cameron’s epic set—a must-see for any fan of the film—as well as a miniature deck chair and a much-coveted menu holder.
Another thoughtful addition was a final exhibit that provided a local historical tie to Chicago. Safety laws, specifically the mandatory increase in lifeboats on ships at sea, implemented in the aftermath of Titanic, were a major contributing factor to SS Eastland capsizing on the Chicago River in 1915, resulting in a huge loss of life.
Imagine Exhibition’s Titanic Exhibition in Chicago presented a few highlights and creative elements, but it is overwhelmingly marred by inaccuracies, poor execution, and deliberately misleading presentations. Titanic provides endless potential for a profound and educational experience and there are plenty of examples where that is the case. Here, however, Imagine Exhibiton’s total lack of attention to detail and inauthenticity undermined the exhibition’s credibility at every turn and left far too much to be desired for those in pursuit of a true Titanic encounter.
★★☆☆☆