By Leila Nasiriha
A WOMAN born in Marbella who survived the sinking of the Titanic is among the passengers whose stories are told in ‘The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition’.
Encarnacion Reynaldo was 28 when she decided to go to New York to visit her sister. With her savings of 30 Dollars, she bought a ticket on the Titanic and became a second-class passenger on the ship.
She was one of the 10 Spaniards who boarded the ship and survived its sinking.
A year before going on that voyage, Encarnacion lived in London working for a Gibraltarian family. The businessman Henry Vazques imported latex from India and when he decided to move to London, he also took three of his employees with him, including this woman from Malaga.
But the businessman went bust and Encarnacion left the company and decided to join her sister in New York.
Her journey on the Titanic did not last long. The ship hit an iceberg, but she was lucky and survived the disaster.
Encarnacion, together with several other Titanic survivors, managed to escape in a lifeboat, and eventually they were rescued by the Carpathia.
Now, her story is being told in a new way at Espacio Sohrlin and will continue until 5 January 2027.
It brings a direct Costa del Sol connection to this multimedia experience, which combines real objects, reconstructions of spaces inside the ship, 360-degree images, and VR technology to take visitors into the world of the Titanic in 1912.
The visit takes around 80 minutes and begins with stories about the lives of the passengers and the world of the White Star Line shipping company.
In this section, a number of real objects related to the Titanic and the lives of its passengers are displayed, and Reynaldo’s story is also told.
As the visit continues, visitors enter sections where parts of the Titanic’s interior have been reconstructed, including the bow of the ship, which is reminiscent of the memorable scene from James Cameron’s film Titanic, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, with Celine Dion’s beautiful music associated with the scene.
The reconstructed interior spaces show the striking difference between the lives of first-class and third-class passengers, including the Grand Salon and Cafe Parisien, which show the grandeur of the ship before it sank.
But the most spectacular part of the exhibition is the huge 1,200-square-metre room with 360-degree images.
In this section, images and sound surround visitors from all sides, while the story of a fictional family named Callaghan is told. They board the Titanic, and the audience travels with them.
The images and sound from all directions gradually take us from the excitement of the journey to the tragic night when the ship sank. This is where visitors feel that they are not simply watching, but are inside the story.
Another section of the exhibition is dedicated to the musicians of the Titanic’s orchestra, the same musicians who continued playing during the final hours, even when the fate of the ship had become clear.
Visitors can use virtual reality and sounds coming from all around them to imagine themselves in the atmosphere of that night.
The exhibition’s original music was composed by Rene Merkelbach, with more than 50 musicians from the Budapest Symphony Orchestra taking part in its production.
In the virtual reality section, the journey to the Titanic is not limited to 1912.
READ MORE: Titanic relic resurfaces in Granada after nearly 100 years
Visitors first see the ship during its glorious days and then travel to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, reaching the site of the Titanic wreck on the seabed, where it has remained in the darkness of the deep ocean for more than a century.
Before coming to Malaga, the exhibition was also held in Madrid, where it attracted more than 1.5 million visitors.
What makes this exhibition different from a conventional Titanic museum is its emphasis on experience and storytelling.
Instead of simply looking at objects behind glass, visitors enter reconstructed spaces, find themselves surrounded by 360-degree images, travel to the depths of the ocean through virtual reality, and follow the stories of the passengers and crew from close up.
And for residents of the Costa del Sol, perhaps the most interesting point is that among the hundreds of stories connected to the Titanic, one of its rescued passengers was a woman born in Marbella.
A connection that brings this distant historical story closer to the geography of this very region.
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