Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth explores how the life of one man has become a legend that has been perpetuated in societies around the globe for 2000 years. The exhibition presents material from two millennia, five continents, and over 20 languages. It explores how European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have all moulded Alexander into the fictional hero they want him to be. We wanted to create a magical environment to tell this epic story. The exhibition has the presence of Alexander’s story throughout without needing to be explicit on place and time. The environments shift through scale, colour and texture to define mood; a journey that goes from bright orange through to dark purple across a spectrum. 

The object-rich exhibition includes sculpture, costume, astrological clay tablets, ancient papyri, and medieval manuscripts, movie clips, a bespoke interactive that recalls the story of the fortune-telling trees of the sun and moon, and finishes with a large-scale physical and digital reconstruction of the tomb of Alexander from the video game Assassin’s Creed, a collaboration achieved with Ubisoft.