During the Riga Talks 3 events (October 4-8, 2021) Lipke Bunker VR prototype will be available to explore at the Memorial.
Session (October 5, 19:15 - 20:15) will bring together new media artists, educationists, social anthropologists, and young people to discuss Lipke Bunker VR Documentary as an innovative way of storytelling in the digital age.
A story about the secret kept by a 8 years old boy Zigis, the son of the towering figure among rescuers of Jews under the Nazi occupation in Latvia, Žanis Lipke and his wife Johanna. A story about people who actively disrupt the timeline of genocide. A story about radical social justice.
Having started with a pitch of ideas at the Riga International Film Festival hackathon in 2019, this collaborative project among Lipke Memorial and the 4 strong team of young Latvian new media artists has grown into a pro bono partnership with Minneapolis (U.S.) based advertising agency Fallon.
In the first sprint of the project, the creative team focused on developing the core story of the bunker space in Ķīpsala as seen from Zigis’ perspective. The current development of the project augment the scope of perspectives to include the stories of those people whom Lipke helped evade the Holocaust. This augmentation of multiple perspectives and stories is intended to create a non-linear interactive experience, which captures the scale of the effect Lipke efforts during the Holocaust. The creative team is currently developing the story of a family from Berlin, Hanna and Sofia Stern. The Sterns were deported from Berlin to Riga in 1942 and were able to escape from the Kaiserwald Concentration Camp in one of Lipke’s most challenging rescue operations.
Session will give a chance to critically examine the initial build of the Lipke Bunker VR from the perspective of the target audience, i.e. young people, and the social anthropologists who have carried out a number of focus group discussions.
A sneak peek of the 2nd iteration of the Lipke Bunker VR will be presented by the Fallon Creative Technologist Cory McLeod.
Join the session today at Žanis Lipke Memorial