If quietly admiring Van Gogh seems a little too conventional, Tallinn has alternatives. On 19 August 2026, you can add Pilates and breathwork to the experience. Naturally, we had to investigate.
Some of you may be fond of art. Others enjoy Pilates. Most of us are reasonably committed to breathing. In Tallinn, apparently there is no reason to do these things separately. On 19 August, the Vincent Van Gogh immersive exhibition in Telliskivi is hosting an evening combining Pilates, FBR breathwork and a rather spectacular audiovisual world of moving paintings, colour, light and sound.
I discovered this after visiting the exhibition myself recently — although my own contribution to physical exercise consisted mostly of walking around, craning my neck while wearing VR goggles and resisting the urge to sprint through an imaginary Van Gogh landscape. More on that shortly.
Not your usual art exhibition
I dabble in throwing paint onto canvas myself and seeing what happens. I know that I am no Van Gogh or Picasso, which is probably reassuring to anyone who has ever seen one of my paintings, but it does mean I have a particular fondness for seeing what happens when people who actually know what they’re doing throw paint onto canvas. So when a friend suggested meeting at Tallinn’s Van Gogh immersive exhibition, I said yes. Admittedly, the HEIA part of my brain briefly wondered why we weren’t visiting an Estonian artist. That part of my brain is apparently permanently employed. But Van Gogh won.
The international Van Gogh Exhibition: The Immersive Experience opened in Tallinn’s Telliskivi creative district in June and has previously travelled through cities including New York, London, Tokyo, Berlin and Brussels. More than 10 million people worldwide have visited it, and it was named USA TODAY’s best immersive art experience of 2025.
It isn’t simply a room full of pictures with people standing solemnly in front of them pretending to understand brushwork. There are reconstructed paintings and three-dimensional works, stories from Vincent van Gogh’s life (1853-1890) and letters, a recreation of his bedroom and an art studio where visitors can try creating something themselves.
And then things get considerably less conventional. The paintings start moving.
The centrepiece is a huge 360-degree immersive room where more than 200 works come alive across the walls and floor through light, animation and sound.
Deckchairs are scattered around the room, so we sat down and watched Van Gogh’s paintings, words and fragments of his life move around us. And across us.
There is something wonderfully strange about watching famous artworks bounce across people’s heads while everyone sits peacefully in deckchairs. It may not be how Van Gogh imagined his paintings would eventually be displayed, but then again, the man lived in the 19th century. Projectors would have required quite an explanation. It is beautiful, though — and a completely different way of experiencing familiar art.
Then came the VR. And I went looking for the edge of Van Gogh…
I have a soft spot for new technology, while simultaneously maintaining a healthy suspicion that if virtual reality becomes too good I may eventually move in and refuse to come back. Naturally, I put the goggles on.
The VR experience takes you through an imagined landscape based on Van Gogh’s works — past buildings, through fields and into the world of paintings most of us have previously only seen framed on walls or reproduced in books.
My researcher brain immediately wanted to know where the edges were. So while approximately 20 perfectly sensible people were enjoying the experience around me, I was twisting my head in increasingly improbable directions trying to discover what the creators had put where visitors weren’t supposed to look.
I also wanted to abandon the predetermined route and sprint off through the virtual landscape to investigate everything, perhaps locate Van Gogh himself and ask a few questions. I failed. Apparently virtual tourists cannot be trusted with complete freedom either.
And now, Pilates
This brings us back to 19 August. Because apparently immersing visitors in Van Gogh’s paintings wasn’t enough. For one evening, the Tallinn exhibition is adding Pilates and FBR (Facilitated Breath Repatterning) breathwork to the mix.
The session begins at 8pm, with ticket holders able to enter the exhibition from 6.45pm. Pilates will be led by Eliisabet Valmas, founder of KOOR Reformer, followed by an FBR breathwork session led by Gert Reinberg. And all of this happens surrounded by Van Gogh’s moving paintings, light, colour and sound.
There may be something rather lovely about the idea — giving the mind and senses something beautiful to experience while giving the body a reason to move and breathe a little more consciously. Perhaps art, movement and breath make clever companions after all.
Which raises a question I didn’t know I had until now: what other activities could we put inside art exhibitions? Book club beneath Starry Night? Speed dating among the sunflowers? Tax returns in Van Gogh’s bedroom? Actually, no. Some things even art cannot save. Others, we should encourage.
Van Gogh × Pilates × FBR breathwork
📍 Van Gogh exhibition, Telliskivi 60a/9, Tallinn 10412
📅 19 August 2026
⏰ Exhibition access from 6.45pm; practice begins at 8pm
🎨 Read more here: Movement with Van Gogh (in Estonian)
For those who prefer their Van Gogh without abdominal engagement, the regular exhibition continues in Tallinn until 10 January 2027.
You’ll find it at Telliskivi 60a/9, beside the Von Krahl Theatre and close to Fotografiska. The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 8pm, with some public-holiday closures, and the organisers suggest allowing about 45 minutes for a visit.
I dispute the last part. Forty-five minutes may technically be enough. I reached the exit and wanted to turn around and do the whole thing again.
There is also, inevitably, a gift shop. I resisted. Every available centimetre of my suitcase back to Australia had already been allocated to Estonian chocolate, booze and gifts, and one must have priorities. But I left with something better anyway: the peculiar memory of sitting in a darkened room while Van Gogh’s colours travelled across the walls, floor and heads of strangers — and then walking through one of his imaginary worlds.
Tomorrow night, some people will be doing all that while exercising and consciously remembering to breathe.
Tallinn, you strange and wonderful place. Please don’t ever become too sensible. Keep thinking creatively — it’s one of the things we love about you.
Read more
Van Gogh immersive experience in Tallinn
Vincent van Gogh’i elamusnäitus Tallinnas (+ galerii) | Eesti Elu (in Estonian)
Gallery: Van Gogh immersive exhibition opens in Tallinn’s Telliskivi | ERR
New Van Gogh Immersive Exhibition | The Baltic Guide
