Expanded Realities Exhibition

May 7

May 10

Rich Mix (The Mix),

Free, No Booking Required

Our Expanded Realities Programme this year showcases forms of non-fiction storytelling which go beyond a single screen. Projects using audio, publishing, VR and video installations are presented across our free exhibition. The exhibition is free to attend and based at Rich Mix (The Mix) on the fourth floor. Opening times are:

Wednesday 7 May 2pm – 7pm (opening drinks from 4.30pm – 7pm)

Thursday 8 May 12pm – 7pm

Friday 9 May 12pm – 7pm

Saturday 10 May 12pm – 7pm

Borderline Visible uses a book of images and text fragments which the reader is navigated through by an accompanying soundtrack that activates and reworks the non-linear publication. The work documents two artist friends travelling from Lausanne, Switzerland to Izmir, Turkey, with this seemingly direct journey opening into a non-linear exploration of the borders – geopolitical, personal, historical – encountered along the way. The resulting study connects Frontex border enforcement to historic Sephardi communities by way of Eliot’s The Waste Land in a rich weaving of research and material found en route.

Copies of Borderline Visible are also available to purchase at our festival bookshop and at the exhibition: the audio is included with the book in order to experience in full whenever and wherever you like. To purchase a copy please purchase online here and show a member of the festival team your order confirmation to collect your copy.

Through a speculative conversation with cryptographer Hal Finney, who was cryostatically frozen in 2014, this assembly of YouTube clips, home videos, 3D animations and other found footage reckons with the past, present and future of techno-utopian ideologies and their proponents. Like Finney’s body, the work suggests our current adoption of cryptocurrency and other technologies is in a state of suspended animation, with a coming back to earth moment looming at some point in the future.

STUDENT SHOWCASE: AUDIO STORYTELLING FOR RADIO AND PODCAST MA AND IMMERSIVE FACTUAL STORYTELLING MA

A selection of short audio documentaries created by current students on UCL’s Audio Storytelling for Radio and Podcast MA will be available to listen to at listening stations in the exhibition and on your own devices and headphones. The projects presented are:

In Living Memory by Shadé Joseph
There’s only so long you can ignore something knocking on your heart. Eventually you’ve got to listen, or it will find its way in. Until then you “get on with things” until you just can’t anymore. It took Shadé almost a lifetime before she surrendered to the knocking of her eldest brother Zeon, who died 17 years before she was born. In Living Memory is a voice message to Zeon, filling him in on conversations she never thought would have, and it is also a thank you for being a legacy in which all the children in her family exist.

Shorn Women by Chloe Turpin
At the end of WWII, around 20,000 women across France were accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’. Their alleged crime: sleeping with German soldiers. And their punishment was having their heads shaved and facing a public beating. Chloe’s grand-mother’s Émilienne was one of the shorn women of French liberation. Like many others at the time, her story was always shrouded in shame and mystery. Through conversations with family members in Brittany and a trawl through the French National Archives, the series looks at this controversial and overlooked historical event through the lens of gender and transgenerational trauma.

Theatre Kid by Clara Harris
The child of two theatre artists, Flynn Harris’ childhood was unique. He spent many evenings and weekends tucked into the corner of a rehearsal room doing homework, or playing with toys in the back rows of a darkened theatre during tech week. On the cusp of adulthood and high school graduation, he looks back at his first eighteen years with his mother – who is in graduate school 4000 miles away in London. As their paths bend apart, what knits them together?

The exhibition also includes interactive VR projects developed by current students on the Immersive Factual Storytelling MA, using game engine technologies to create virtual environments which adapt and activate research and personal experiences of participants gathered by the students.

Listening to War by Belinda Cherrington, Isaac Irvine, Shuya Wang / 王姝雅, Siqi Xie / 谢斯琦
This groundbreaking immersive work is based on the diary excerpts from The Drone Eats With Me: Diaries from a City Under Fire’. Written by Atef Abu Saif (Comma Press, 2015). When, Atef, a young father and acclaimed Palestinian writer, was trapped in Gaza with his family during the 2014 war.

Confined to their home throughout the 51-day bombardment, we witness how the family comes to terms with their proximity to the relentless sounds of violence that surround them.

We have become numb to the violence and tragedy depicted in news footage. Grief and destruction are often dehumanized. By focusing on the sonic experience of a father fearing for his family’s safety, this work amplifies the deeply human experience of war.

MirroRealm (镜梦) by Yuxi Li, Aini Liu (Lan), Ruishan Zhang, Yujing Wang (Yuki)

Talk of the Trees by Mingyang Hu, Nina Todres, Zijing Jia
Talk of the Trees is an immersive experience where users become trees—gathering sunlight, connecting through underground mycorrhizal networks, and defending against threats. As the journey unfolds, it reveals the harsh reality of deforestation in ancient UK woodlands, highlighting a global crisis. Through gamification and storytelling, the project builds a deep, personal understanding of how trees live, communicate, and why protecting them matters.