FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Person: Erin Kinney
Company Name: Brookline Interactive Group
Telephone Number: 617-731-8566
Email Address: erin@brooklineinteractive.org
Website address: brooklineinteractive.org
BIG / Public VR Lab Launches Immigration & Migration Participatory Media XR/VR Project at HUBweek 2018
Brookline Interactive Group (BIG) and its project, the Public VR Lab, are proudly announcing that they presented the Boston-only release of their immersive stories from their Arrival: Immigration in Full Frame project in a container at HUBweek as part of The HUB, HUBweek’s centralized festival site, from Wednesday, October 10th through Sunday, October 14th, 2018.
Arrival: Immigration in Full Frame, a co-created immersive storytelling project is the first national virtual reality (VR) filmmaking collaborative project curating immigration stories of Americans from pre-1620 through 2018 and incorporating them into a visual XR/VR timeline.
While focused on Boston-area stories at this year’s HUBweek, the final VR/XR project has fifteen partners across the U.S., and will be shared online, in VR/XR, at film festivals, and at arts and cultural organizations nationwide with a curriculum for engaging community dialogue about immigration and migration. The project ponders a shared experience and visual timeline of the commonalities, policies, and complexities of American immigration throughout history using VR/XR as a media platform and public education tool.
In addition to watching these compelling stories in 360 video and VR format, visitors also had the opportunity to record their own families’ immigration and migration stories onsite at BIG’s container as part of an interactive component of BIG’s exhibit in a mobile studio. These new stories will be included in a broader national project that features a VR/XR visual timeline, scheduled to launch as a separate immersive project in late 2019-early 2020.
“Throughout our history, our ancestors have migrated and immigrated to the United States, and we all have stories that have been passed down through our families about the challenges in our old countries and about arriving here, shared Kathy Bisbee, executive director of BIG and co-founder of the Public VR Lab.
“I think these co-created stories are extremely relevant to our community and to the world, timely and important to be documented and shared now with each other. Like Hubweek’s We the People theme this year, it is important that we are reminded of our collective arrival and migrations to this region, and note that the timing of our family’s arrival matters.”
The Boston version of the Lab’s Arrival project will view individual immigration stories through the lens of history, the stories of local residents, and in the context present day U.S. experiences of immigration and migration.
This immersive storytelling project demonstrates the broad diversity and beauty of American immigration, the ways we might re-imagine migration, and outlines a visual narrative of where and how Americans came together. Thus, everyone, whether they just immigrated to the United States, have family roots in this country that go back for centuries, or whose family arrived some time in between, is welcome to participate in this project by sharing their family’s immigration story.
Founded in December 2014 by The Boston Globe, Harvard University, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital, HUBweek is a first-of-its-kind civic collaboration and weeklong festival that brings together the most creative and inventive minds making an impact in art, science and technology. In addition to featuring several speakers, sessions, and even a hackathon, “The HUB,” in which City Hall Plaza is transformed for five days, is a pivotal component of HUBweek. Dubbed the “fairground for the future” by The Boston Globe, it will feature shipping containers, geodesic domes, large-scale pavilions, and live art.
Learn more about Hubweek 2018 here, https://2018.hubweek.org/.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Person: Kathy Bisbee
Company Name: Brookline Interactive Group
Telephone Number: 617-731-8566
Email Address: kathy@brooklineinteractive.org
Website address: brooklineinteractive.org
BIG and the Public VR Lab Launch First National Collaborative Project to Capture Immigration Stories in Virtual Reality
Brookline Interactive Group (BIG) and its project, the Public VR Lab, are proudly launching the first of many parts of their Immigration in Full Frame project, the first national Virtual Reality (VR) filmmaking collaborative, which is curating immigration stories of Americans from pre-1620 through 2018 and incorporating them into a visual XR timeline. On Friday, September 14th, they are offering a sneak peak of 360 and VR stories created locally from families have recently migrated to America and others who have been here hundreds of years.
Their Brookline and Boston-based work is part of a national project titled Arrival: Immigration in Full Frame and is comprised of diverse cohort of over 15 artists, librarians, journalists, media practitioners and filmmakers from Alaska to North Carolina to Maine. This project will create the first immersive experience of immigration stories in 360/VR, collected from immigrant families arriving in 1620 to present-day United States as well as First Nation families who have migrated throughout North America and within the U.S. This immersive storytelling project demonstrates the broad diversity and beauty of American immigration, the ways we might re-imagine migration, and outlines a visual narrative of where and how Americans came together. Thus, everyone, whether they just immigrated to the United States, have family roots in this country that go back for centuries, or whose family arrived some time in between, is welcome to participate in this project by sharing their family’s immigration story.
While the first component of this project includes deeply compelling 360 and VR stories, Immigration in Full Frame is also ultimately building the field of Community XR through the development of story-based curriculum and production strategies for emerging media practitioners, and through the distribution of an XR experience at film festivals, community screenings with facilitated public discussions, and as a participatory StoryCorps-style installation at museums and at arts and cultural organizations.
BIG and The Public VR Lab will also be showcasing the first release of stories in their container at Hubweek from Wednesday, October 10th through Sunday, October 14th, 2018. In addition to watching these stories, visitors will also have the opportunity to share their own families’ immigration stories on film as part of an interactive component of BIG’s exhibit. These new stories will be included in the XR timeline, which is scheduled to launch as a separate immersive project in late 2019-early 2020.
“Nearly all Americans were once immigrants or migrants, but this project will view our individual immigration stories through the lens of history, the stories of local residents, and in the context present day U.S. experiences of immigration. While these experiences have varied based on what was allowable at that time period, federal policies, what the obstacles were, and the unique passages taken to arrive on the shores of America, we are all Americans and have an arrival story,” said Kathy Bisbee, the Arrival product’s producer/director, executive director at BIG and co-founder of the Public VR Lab.
In addition, Aakanksha Gupta, a fellow at the Public VR Lab and recent graduate of Emerson College, has launched a Community Storytelling Guide as a resource to support storytellers and media-makers as they interview migrants who want to share their stories online in journalism stories. The guide is designed to help interviewers be better prepared to work with a wide range of migrants and effectively capture the details and nuance of their stories.
“This is especially important in the US, a country built on voluntary and involuntary migration.” says Gupta. “Through this guide I want to help storytellers learn how to be more inclusive and responsible, and to help keep minority communities safe.”
To learn more, please visit https://brooklineinteractive.org/brookline-immigration-full-frame/.
About Brookline Interactive Group (BIG):
Brookline Interactive Group (BIG) is an integrated media and technology education center and a community media hub for Brookline, MA and the region. BIG facilitates diverse community dialogue, incubates and funds hyperlocal storytelling, arts, journalism and technology projects, and serves over 500 youth and adults annually through innovative classes and partnerships. BIG offers extensive multimedia training, Virtual Reality (VR) and 360-video cameras and training, access to high quality filmmaking equipment, production grants, and provides low-cost professional media services to non-profit organizations, education partners, businesses, and to local government.
About the Public VR Lab
The Public VR Lab is growing a field for Community XR that promotes accessibility, digital inclusion, and diversity. The Lab is disrupting traditional media communications in community-based civic media, journalism and arts, cultural and educational organizations by providing XR Toolkits, equipment, training, cohorts, artists residencies, fellowships and content in the public interest. The Lab is a project of Brookline Interactive Group, a next generation public access community media arts center.