The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Exploring the Potential of VR for Decolonial Storytelling

This project investigates how scenario writers can responsibly create cinematic Virtual Reality (VR) stories about colonial histories and their contemporary impact, with the aim of contributing to societal reflection, historical awareness, and more inclusive understandings of shared pasts.
VR offers powerful opportunities for engaging broad audiences with difficult topics, such as injustice and oppression (e.g. Dunivan, et al., 2024). Next to this, it also carries significant ethical risks: experiences can slip into exposing, appropriation or voyeurism, overwhelm users emotionally, place audiences in positions of unintended complicity. Within this context the complexity of working with VR is both in its technical possibilities and complexity, and in accountable and responsible writing. The project therefore opens up the world of cinematic VR by developing knowledge and tools that help writers navigate both technical and storytelling challenges while safeguarding values such as inclusivity, accessibility, emotional safety, cultural sensitivity, and agency.
Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the project brings together writers, VR creators, heritage institutions, cultural organizations, and researchers in a collaborative workshop series about decolonial storytelling. These sessions act as creative research laboratories in which narrative ideas are tested, ethical tensions surface, and participants collectively reflect on how immersive stories influence perception, embodiment, and audience positioning. By centring writers’ dilemmas rather than user outcomes, the project addresses a crucial yet underexplored stage of immersive production: narrative decisions that determine whether public values are upheld or compromised.
Partners— Stichting SKLNE, Stichting West, KB Nationale Bibliotheek, Nationaal Archief, Studio Biarritz—ensure that the project integrates diverse professional perspectives on cultural heritage, decolonial practices, artistic innovation, and responsible technology use. Their involvement guarantees that public values are examined not only theoretically but through real-world creative processes.
The project culminates in a publicly accessible toolkit for writers and writing rooms offering narrative principles, ethical guidelines, and practical strategies.