Production

Natalie’s Trifecta is an interactive art experience which brings three levels of the artistic practice of multi-disciplinary artist Natalie Paneng to life through creative worldbuilding.

The project is an intimate journey through the mind and worlds of an artist whose practice is centred around using her being as an artistic medium- making use of her body to represent characters, space and fantastical anecdotes.

The project aims to be a way to bring viewers into the internal and physical worlds of the artist’s process by inviting them to journey into three worlds which aim to represent the three spheres of the artist’s practice. Bringing creative worldbuilding, storytelling and interactive art into one space for the viewer to experience the whole trifecta.

Natalie’s Trifecta aims to be a formula for new media artists to present themselves and their practices in a more immersive manner. The project aims to inspire other artists to centre themselves in their work and allow more people to experience them and their envisioned digital utopias.

LETU is a 3DoF VR and PC immersive experience in which viewers are introduced to Frankie, a singer, songwriter and performer living boldly in Tanzania. As a queer individual, Frankie’s story is unique in its representation, showcasing the joy and simplicity in growing up in Tanzania, even when our culture and society does not understand her. In this experience, she leads you through an immersive world carefully and intentionally designed to evoke scenes from her memory.

In this first episode of LETU: Frankie’s Story, we follow Frankie through her first time in school in Arusha, a northern town in Tanzania. Here she discovers her uniqueness and her own safe space. She then takes us through her baptism, where she first gets to express herself as a little girl, and embrace herself honestly. In an upcoming episode, the audience will get to see her become bolder and dream bigger, evolving into the beautiful human she is today.

The project was initially produced as part of the Institute for Creative Arts Fellowship in November 2020, which can be viewed through this link. This iteration of LETU has been developed through the support and expertise gained from the New Dimensions Lab and the Social Impact Awards that was powered by Electric South (SA) in 2022. This project is supported by the Unity Charitable Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation. This grant was managed by Electric South.

Following the stories of family members of missing migrants in Benin City, in the southern part of Nigeria. This project explores the psychological effect of the consequences of irregular migrations on families who are left clueless as to the whereabouts of their loved ones.

Using an installation art that makes use of virtual reality (VR), sound (real life interview recordings) and a recycled container to represent the emptiness and sadness that exist in the minds of left behind family members of missing migrants, audience will be immersed into the minds of these family members as they narrate their pains, anxieties, fears and unresolved hopes.

Every year, thousands of young and vibrant Nigerians embark on this dangerous journey in search of a better life for themselves and their families through this bloodthirsty and tortuous route. Unsurprisingly, only a cupful of them make it to the shores of their dreamlands. The bottom of the wailing waves of the Mediterranean Sea becomes the resting place for the remains of the unluckiest ones after their bodies have been jagged by aquatic predators; while other unlucky ones get arrested along the borders of Libya by human traffickers who either abuse them and or sell them off as modern-day slaves. The unluckier ones fall into the hands of the Libyan government as illegal migrants – their place is in the quietest of prisons unknown to anyone but their “captors.”

What becomes of the families of these ones back home? Anxiety, sorrow, emotional pain, feverish consultations and pleas with the gods that define their lives. They never lose sight of hope; years roll by like wheels, yet their growing hope continues to feed on their emotions and attachment to their loved ones. Why shouldn’t they? There is no proof of deaths, so they wait…