What happens when Indigenous rangers and state of the art virtual reality technology meet? You get ‘Indigenous reality’.
At the moment there are 7 videos in total with locations across NSW that include Sydney Harbour, Katoomba, Kosciuszko National Park, Lake Mungo, Dorrigo National Park & the Coffs Harbour region. In each video, an Aboriginal ranger shares some of their knowledge from that region. This knowledge includes language, Dreaming stories, information about plants and animals as well as Aboriginal history that stretches back for thousands of years.
Indigilab are the group who teamed up with the Aboriginal rangers to produce the videos. The videos were originally recorded for the Wilderquest educational website with support from the NSW National Parks & Wildlife service.
The good news is these 360 videos are available for everyone. They are designed to be a tool for knowledge sharing that will be around for generations to come. Even though the project was created for school based learning, they have the power to captivate viewers of all ages anywhere around the world.
How many tourists have been to Sydney Harbour but went back home without any knowledge of the regions Indigenous story?
Will you help share these amazing videos? With enough demand, we could see this project rolled out into other areas of Australia. The videos can be found on Vimeo and can be viewed with a smart phone, tablet, computer or laptop. But for the best experience you gotta get your hands on a Virtual Reality headset and a good internet connection.
Be sure to check out all 7 of the deadly videos, let us know which one was your favourite and where else you would like to see more videos made.
To learn more about the Indigilab team and their story behind this project, check out the article published by NITV.
