The Walt Disney Company Celebrates 100 Years with Exhibit Launching in 2023 at Philadelphia’s The Franklin Institute

The Walt Disney Company Celebrates 100 Years with Exhibit Launching in 2023 at Philadelphia’s The Franklin Institute

In less than two years The Walt Disney Company will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. Founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother Roy, the company started as an animation studio and has grown into one of the leading players in the entertainment industry.

The company has not made any major announcements on what is planned as of yet, but Rebecca Cline, director of the Walt Disney Archives announced in March there will be an upcoming exhibition celebrating “the wonder of Disney, from 1923 to the present, and into the future.”

The yet-to-be-named exhibition will premiere in February 2023 at Philadelphia’s The Franklin Institute. Disney has said that SC Exhibitions has begun production on an exhibition that showcases the company’s history and rich legacy.

Hundreds of items from The Walt Disney Archives’ extensive collection of historical Disney artifacts will be featured in the exhibition. Along with the galleries, the exhibition will feature an immersive environment of sight and sound spanning 15,000 square feet, showcasing stories and characters from The Walt Disney Company’s last century.

The Walt Disney Archives/Disney

“As we approach the 100th Anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, we at the Walt Disney Archives are incredibly excited about traveling a new and unique exhibit marking a century of unparalleled innovation and storytelling with the world,” said Rebecca Cline, director of the Walt Disney Archives.

Historian and Co-Curator Paula Sigman Lowery, an internationally recognized expert on Walt Disney and The Walt Disney Company, shares this insight on the future exhibit: “It’s thrilling to bring Disney’s crown jewels—art, memorabilia, costumes, props, and one-of-a-kind treasures—to public view—and to explore the story of one of the world’s most creative entertainment companies. Many of these objects have never before been seen outside the company’s archival, animation, and Imagineering vaults.”

President and CEO of The Franklin Institute Larry Dubinski added that “The Franklin Institute is thrilled to debut this world premiere exhibition in Philadelphia during the remarkable 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company. We look forward to celebrating the legacy of a creative empire synonymous with imaginative storytelling, innovation, discovery, and wonder that spans generations and delivers widespread, undeniable global appeal.”

The exhibition marks the third collaboration between SC Exhibitions and Studio TK, a Berlin-based collective of architects, visual artists, and experts of entertainment technology who specialize in aiding the creation of brand exhibitions. “It’s great to work at The Franklin Institute again, where our ‘Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes’ exhibit drew hundreds of thousands of visitors in summer 2019 to the galleries. It’s a big honor to develop the design for the 100th anniversary exhibit of The Walt Disney Company with the Walt Disney Archives,” says Studio TK exhibition designer Tobias Kunz.

The as-yet-untitled “Disney Centennial” exhibition will launch in February 2023 at The Franklin Institute, with a second, parallel staging for territories outside the U.S. set to have its global premiere the following month, says Dieter Semmelmann, SC Exhibitions CEO.

At next year’s D23 Expo in Anaheim, California, Disney fans will get a first look at some of the other major announcements planned for this upcoming milestone.

The D23 Expo was originally to have been held in the summer of 2021, however due to the coronavirus pandemic and the uncertainty as to where the United States, as well as the rest of the world, would be at that time, Disney decided to postpone the event until next year. Now the expo, which is typically held in the odd ending years, will now be held from 9-11 September 2022. Disney has yet to comment whether they will hold back-to-back expos in 2022 and 2023 or shift the dates to even ending years.

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