Nomad — Reconnecting with Somali Heritage

Nomad is based on workshops with Somali communities in London and explores the creative application of immersive and web-based technology to place Somali archival objects in context with the people and traditions to which they belong. Nomad is a joint project of Mnemoscene and Abira Hussein. The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and had its premiere at the British Library and Museum during the 2018 Somali Week Festival.

Combining many different artistic approaches and strategies, the project brings people together by offering workshops on digitization and oral histories, creating and expanding existing cultural heritage archives, and fostering new narratives around these archives through the use of immersive technology. The project founders sought to contextualize Somali cultural heritage in everyday spaces, so they chose Mixed Reality (MR) as their medium from the start. In contrast to virtual reality, wearing an MR headset like HoloLens transforms the everyday environment through a virtual overlay. As a nomadic experience, the project traveled to various public locations as a workshop during Somali Week. During these workshops, participants were also able to create digitized versions of their own heritage objects. 

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