Portinari – 2nd Unveiling at the UN

The War and Peace paintings were made by the Brazilian artist Candido Portinari in 1956. The murals were installed in the General Assembly Hall in 1957, the most important space at the United Nations headquarters.

In 2007, after 50 years at the United Nations the paintings were sent to Brazil, their home country, for restoration. In 2013, after completing the restoration of the murals, they were exhibited in Brazil for a year before taking them back to the UN for their 2nd unveiling at the General Assembly Room.

On this project, we were contracted to provide projection mapping services. Our scope of work was to provide the technology, knowledge, services & equipment to bring the project to life. Together with the video production team from Brazil, we created an incredible video, and mapped it on the famous wooden, arced, accented wall of the General Assembly room to bring the paintings to life.  The story about the murals was projected and displayed to a crowd of over 2000 people, including the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.

The projected surface was over 300 feet and we had used 6 projectors to achieve the targeted lumens. We built a system that is fully redundant to ensure 100% success rate.