Background

Situation The British Museum is the world’s largest receiver of stolen goods with over 8 million objects - that’s a lot of potentially looted artefacts. But for centuries, we’ve only heard the imperialist version of how 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 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 (40% of vote)

The Unfiltered History Tour is a guerrilla tour of the British Museum carried out by re-engineering AR in Instagram Filters that add dog ears to selfies to instead scan 3D life-sized artefacts and unfilter the Museum's Imperial narrative. Visitors can scan the Museum's disputed artefacts and see them being teleported back in time to their home countries, with first-ever depictions of violent moments in history told from the perspective of once-colonised voices. People around the world could also unfilter history through immersive audio-visual experiences on the Unfiltered History Tour’s website. Each frame has been inspired by Kurusawa black and white movies (Kurusawa mode), designed to match the high emotion of the native experts and their perspectives.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

The histories of the British Museum’s looted artefacts have only ever been told from a colonial perspective. Our challenge was to give a first-ever visual depiction to these moments in history from a marginalised perspective while maintaining historical accuracy. We collaborated with an Art Historian, and a representative from each artefacts’ home country. So that the visuals appreciated the different cultures, instead of appropriating them. Each frame illustrates an accurate depiction of the unique connection each artefact had with its origin country, with an illustrative style that provides a visual experience instead of just a visual tour. The Kurusawa black and white mode, complemented by the strong lighting gave each frame a cinematic, yet serious feel. For the first time, colonies were depicted as formidable forces to reckon with, as they squared off against the British Empire, defending their colonial treasures - unseen in historical documentation or textbooks, so far.

List the results (20% of vote)

In its first month, the campaign has seen Earned media worth $631K 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 (in 30 days) 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.”