Virtual reality portrait gallery

Virtual reality portrait gallery

Lasdun Hall, RCP by Mike Fear 2009
Lasdun Hall, Royal College of Physicians, London

The RCP owns only a handful of painted or sculptural portraits of women, however, we do have a significant collection of photographic portraits of female physicians. Unfortunately, these are often too small and fragile to display.

Our headquarters at 11 St Andrews Place, London, forms part of the RCP’s identity and to have women represented on the walls of this space is crucial. The virtual reality gallery was developed and the photographs digitised to afford women pride of place in a virtual version of the RCP. It was created collaboratively with the University of Westminster in 2017 as a Museum-University Partnership Initiative project funded by Arts Council England.

Visitors can access and interact with the online exhibition on a desktop, mobile device or virtual reality equipment. Click on the red circles to get closer and on the ‘i’ symbol next to each photograph to discover the biography of each physician, taken from the ‘Inspiring physicians’ series. Videos included in the virtual reality portrait gallery are from Oxford Brooks University Medical Sciences Video Archive.