This project is a collaboration between the Public Exchange Bureau (PEB) and Deakin Motion Lab (DML) at Deakin University. With Hobsons Bay City Council the project aims to bring to light some of the hidden histories of Brooklyn, in Melbourne’s West, through an innovative blend of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies and participatory storytelling/creative art workshops.

The project engages with the stories and hidden histories of the suburb of Brooklyn, in Melbourne’s west, a historically stigmatised community for its association with industries of different kinds. With its changing demographic, the community seeks inclusive ways to represent itself and to explore questions of sustainable futures for its growing and diversifying population The project seeks to test and realise models of consultative creative arts community engagement. Its challenge is how to tell and share old and emerging stories among the community, to strengthen local identity and historical understanding, and whether new technologies (such as AR) can offer practical ways to engage in place and over time.

The project will realise a series of inclusive creative arts workshops to invite the community to tell the stories of the area and envision new identities for the area. In consultation, it will select stories to inform a series of engaging augmentations, using cutting-edge AR technologies to allow new modes of interaction with (and preservation of) intangible cultural heritage. Integrating these into an accessible smart device platform, it aims to draw visitors and residents into exchange with existing and envisioned local stories, including First Nations and migrant experience, goldrush history, climate futures and lived examples of human and non-human connection and conversation.   

Start Date: 11/09/2024

End Date: 19/12/2025

Project Funding: Hobsons Bay City Council