Why is this work relevant for Media?

For centuries, the British Museum has put forth an imperialist narrative surrounding its disputed artefacts. The Unfiltered History Tour is an alternative, interactive tour of the Museum’s disputed artefacts through Augmented Reality, the same technology that adds dog ears to selfies. Visitors to the Museum can scan disputed artefacts, and unfilter their true history (featuring the first-ever visual depictions of scenes of colonial crime). From Egyptologists, to the seventh descendant of the Gweagal Shield, to the Governor of Rapa Nui - 10 native experts play tour guide in narrating the true histories of these artefacts.

Background

Situation The British Museum is the world’s largest receiver of stolen goods. With over 8 million objects, that’s a lot of looted artefacts. For centuries, we’ve only heard the imperialist version of they got there. An equitable environment can only be created when silenced voices express the intergenerational trauma caused by colonial loot. Brief To place VICE World News at the forefront of conversations around colonialism and challenge dominant cultures by opening up dialogue to countries around the world to create a balance in the way history has been told. Objectives 1. Give a platform to underrepresented minority voices to share their accounts of artefacts that belong to their country. 2. Re-ignite the ongoing conversation on repatriation and postcolonialism on social media, with VICE championing marginalised voices. 3. Educate young people about the untold side of history using a tool as accessible as Instagram filters to tell unfiltered stories.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

The Unfiltered History Tour is a guerrilla tour of the British Museum carried out via Instagram filters by making use of Augmented Reality that the internet is no stranger to. However, instead of adding dog ears to a selfie, the same technology was re-engineered to scan and identify life-sized 3D artefacts in differing light conditions throughout the day, to unfilter centuries of colonial narrative. In this alternative interactive tour, visitors can scan 10 disputed artefacts of the museum and see them being teleported back in time to their home countries, with experts from their homelands playing tour guide by narrating the true story of the loot of these treasures, with Augmented Reality being used as a subversive contextual overlay. Those who aren’t at the British Museum can unfilter history from wherever they are in the world, with immersive audio-video experiences and extended podcasts hosted on the Unfiltered History Tour website.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

With The Unfiltered History Tour, we saw an opportunity to educate audiences by promoting expert voices who are native to the home countries of the artefacts housed in the British Museum. In doing so, we provided a deeply authentic, international perspective which can often be lost in mainstream news reporting around repatriation of the British Museum’s objects. We took a social first approach to the promotion of the project with our 18 to 34 year old audiences, who use Instagram and TikTok for news consumption.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The Instagram filters were developed by a 100-person strong team working remotely for 18 months across 10 timezones. AR technicians accounted for changing light conditions inside the museum by developing an Instagram filter based on real-time weather using LiDAR technology (Light Detection and Ranging) to dynamically adapt to the changing environment at the museum, in a first of its kind Instagram Filter that blends satellite data with Augmented Reality. At any given point, only 1% of the British Museum's collection is on display. Through our extended podcast series, users could continue to discover the unfiltered history of artefacts not on display - like the Amaravati Marbles from India and Birdman and Boiyanel Structures from Jamaica.

List the results (30% of vote)

In its first month, the campaign has seen $631K earned media 32 million social impressions 40% rise in TikTok followers and 49% increase in total impressions on Instagram 21,583 podcast downloads and 5,200 filter uses Change in behaviour According to a 2014 survey, 59% of Britons were proud of the British Empire. In a poll conducted weeks after the Tour was launched, 59% of Britons said they believed the Parthenon Marbles (part of the Tour) belonged in Greece, a sharp turn in the opposite direction. The podcast series let us go a lot deeper with the project and give audiences something heavily educational, not found in British history textbooks. What some users had to say after taking the tour: “Clever and a brilliant way of teaching historical reality” “Confronts and challenges colonial origins.” “Hearing the past told by multiple perspectives gives depth.” “A much needed resource.”