KUSUNDA: A co-creative immersive journey towards language revitalization
What makes a language fall asleep? And what does it take to awaken one? KUSUNDA is a voice-driven VR experience co-created with the eponymous indigenous community in Nepal. The piece highlights their efforts at revitalizing their dormant mother tongue. Immersive filmmakers and co-founders of NowHere Media share the decade-long process of creating the work that has won several awards including the Tribeca Storyscapes 2021.
Felix Gaedtke is a multi-award winning immersive storyteller and creative producer currently based in Berlin. He co-founded the immersive storytelling studio NowHere Media with an urge to create spaces for under-represented voices in mainstream discourses. His passion to convey different realities across the world has led him to working with VR and AR storytelling techniques. His most recent work KUSUNDA is co-created with the eponymous indigenous group in Nepal and highlights their fight for language reclamation. KUSUNDA recently won the prestigious Storyscapes Award at Tribeca Film Festival. He is a Sundance New Frontier alumnus and has been awarded the ‘Best Use of Immersive Arts’ at SXSW as well as the Lumiere Award for ‘Best VR documentary’ among other accolades. Felix’s immersive works have been exhibited at the Venice International Film Festival, SXSW, Cannes XR, the UN, HotDocs, Bergen International Film Festival and beyond.
Gayatri Parameswaran is a multi-award winning writer, director and producer of immersive works. She was born and raised in India and is currently based in Berlin, where she co-founded NowHere Media — a storytelling studio that views contemporary issues through a critical lens. Gayatri’s artistic practice lies at the intersection of storytelling, technology and societal impact. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, IDFA, Festival de Cannes, United Nations and beyond. She is a Sundance New Frontier alumnus, has won the Tribeca Storyscapes Award for Best Immersive, SXSW Best Use of Immersive Arts, and the Lumiere Award for Best VR documentary, among other accolades. Gayatri is a guest lecturer at universities such as the Freie Universität (FU) Berlin, Hochschule für Medien, Kommunikation und Wirtschaft (HMKW), Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and Züricher Hochschule der Kunst (ZHdK).
