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Project

Embodying Forced Migration Accounts within Devastated Middle Eastern Cultural Heritage Sites: A Physical-Virtual Memorial.

This practice-led research project intends to put forth an Extended Reality (XR)—computer-generated physical and virtual combined environments—experience to build on the strong sensory nature of lived experiences of forced migration. The aim is to situate the complex dynamics surrounding displacement and loss of material culture due to acts of war in the Middle East by asking how can sensory capabilities of XR-based technologies create an experiential space to transform the verbal accounts of displacement into non-verbal visualisation of devastated cultural heritage sites? By drawing on theories of memory and embodiment, this project implements oral history methodologies to collect personal accounts associated with lived experience of Middle Eastern forced migrants; transforms these accounts into physical-virtual memorials taking shape as devastated Middle Eastern cultural heritage sites accompanied by sensory phenomena; and exercises co-creative evaluation using sensory ethnographic methods throughout the making process together with migrants. The dissemination of this project will take place through a limited-scale exhibition along with an open forum for discussion.
Date:1 Dec 2021 →  Today
Keywords:CULTURAL HERITAGE
Disciplines:Generative design and data-visualisation, Historical materials and production methods
Project type:Collaboration project