Immersive Experience
Client: GAİN
Year: 2023
Role: Head of Experience Design, Project Development, Creative Direction and Strategy
The Challenge
As GAİN prepared to relaunch under new leadership, they sought a premiere experience that would reflect their evolving creative identity. Rather than host a conventional gala for their Emmy-winning psychological drama, the goal was to design a bold statement—something emotionally resonant and structurally innovative. The challenge was clear: how do you create a cultural event that doesn't simply present a story, but draws people into its emotional and psychological core?
The Opportunity
Led by Berk Ilhan, the team saw the chance to reimagine the very concept of a premiere. Drawing from the series' themes of memory, loss, and identity, the experience was conceived as a spatial narrative. The venue—a raw, partially demolished 1,500 m² exhibition hall—offered the perfect canvas. The design team proposed a fully immersive walk-through journey, transforming the event into a cinematic, psychological landscape.
The Solution
Ilhan modeled the existing architecture to choreograph a 12-zone experiential maze, each space designed to embody a different emotional texture. One zone evoked the disorientation of memory loss—visitors walked through a dark chamber layered with transparent hanging prints, dimly lit like a photographic darkroom. Another room simulated the interior of a mind, where LED strips shaped like neural synapses responded to a deep, resonant voice, surrounding seated guests with sound and pulsing light.
The path unfolded through a dreamlike version of a city street, flickering with neon, where uncanny performers appeared subtly behind one-way mirrors or emerged silently from corners. Visitors encountered a full-scale vintage car, a mirrored corridor, and a moody speakeasy-style lounge where signature cocktails were served before the screening. Each design element was developed with an emphasis on atmosphere, ambiguity, and emotional pacing.
Ilhan led the project from concept to execution, shaping the spatial storytelling, material strategy, visual language, and experiential rhythm. The process combined hand sketching, 3D modeling, rapid prototyping, and on-site choreography.
The Outcome
The result was a premiere that visitors didn’t just attend—they inhabited it. The event received wide acclaim for its originality and emotional impact, setting a new precedent for how cinematic launches can become embodied, immersive experiences. It deepened audience engagement, amplified GAİN’s brand narrative, and reinforced the series' psychological resonance through architectural, performative, and sensory means.
