Virtual Reality: Closing the Empathy Gap?
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Session Description
In a world where we feel increasingly dislocated from each other, virtual reality can build empathy and connection across great distances and cultures. But what does it mean if we never meet the people on that screen or set foot into their environment? Does this technology bring us together or pull us farther apart? Hear how nonprofits and filmmakers are using VR to engage communities in more meaningful ways, with the hope of inspiring solidarity and action—even from afar.
Time & Location
Time:
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM, Thursday, April 12, 2018
BST
Location:
Lecture Theatre 4
Speakers
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Speaker
Chief of the Yawanawa, Associacao Sóciocultural Yawanawa
Tashka Yawanawá is chief of the Yawanawá people in Acre, Brazil. As chief, he leads 900 people stewarding 400,000 acres of Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The son of the former leader of the Yawanawá, Tashka grew up witnessing the virtual enslavement of his people by the rubber industry and experiencing the near annihilation of the tribe’s culture by missionaries. Since the 1980s, Tashka has actively fought for the rights of indigenous peoples. Realizing that he needed further education to improve the situation of the Yawanawá, he pursued higher education in the U.S. and abroad. He was directly involved in the creation of the Indigenous Lawyers Association and co-founded the Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance, through which he shares the experiences and knowledge of the Yawanawá with youth around the world, and works with projects that guarantee the preservation of different indigenous cultures.. In 2001, Tashka returned to Brazil, and chose to use the knowledge gained from his experiences abroad to help his people transform their future. He became the youngest Chief in the history of the Yawanawá at age twenty-five. In a short amount of time, Tashka and Laura have managed to double the extent of Yawanawá territory, reinvigorate Yawanawá culture, and establish economically and socially empowering relationships with the outside world. Tashka and Laura have two daughters—Kenemani and Luna Rosa—and divide their time living and working in the Yawanawá community and Rio Branco, Brazil.
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Speaker
Founder, Novo Films
Lindsay Branham is an Emmy-nominated and visionary film director, a social scientist, environmental psychologist and author. She is the founder of the film production studio NOVO, where she has pioneered collaborative film-based interventions globally, focusing on mitigating inter-religious violence, increasing resilience, reducing bonded labour, increasing psychological wellbeing and more. Her mobile cinema projects have reached millions of people globally. Notable directorial works include "Even in the Rain" (2018 Venice Film Festival), "The Hidden" (2018 Tribeca Film Festival), "Behind the Fence" (2017 SXSW Grand Jury Award) and "The Deep Place" (2017). Lindsay is currently completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge on the embodied and reciprocal relationship between humans and the Earth. Her book Heartwood is forthcoming in 2025 by Sounds True. She is a Cambridge Trust Scholar. Lindsay is committed to the spiral-like relationship between storytelling, ecology and justice.
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Speaker
Lawyer, International Justice Mission
When he was 14 years old, Raja’s whole family became trapped in bonded labor slavery at a brutal brick kiln, all because of a small loan. For two years, Raja worked 19 hours a day, sleeping in a one-room hut with his parents and without access to school. In 2004, International Justice Mission began investigating the brick kiln where Raja and his family were trapped, and eventually worked with local authorities to mobilize a rescue operation in the brick kiln that freed more than 130 people, including Raja.
In 2005, Raja became the first member of his family to graduate from high school, after which he went on to complete a five-year degree in law. In 2012, Raja was hired by International Justice Mission as a lawyer to protect the rights of bonded laborers, supporting rescue operations and building solid cases against those who abuse the poor.
Raja is married and has two little boys.
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Speaker
Filmmaker, Coco Films
Nicole Newnham has been a documentary filmmaker for over twenty years. Most recently she produced “Collisions”. Previously, Nicole co-directed & produced the Emmy-nominated documentary The Revolutionary Optimists, which screened globally and was selected by the Emmy-award winning PBS series Independent Lens. The film, which followed an extraordinary group of young activists in the slums of Kolkata, inspired her to develop Map Your World, an online community and storytelling platform for young changemakers that enables youth to leverage mobile technology to map data on public health issues as the centerpiece of a campaign for change in their communities.
Nicole initiated, co-produced and directed The Rape of Europa, about the fate of Europe’s art treasures during WWII. The Rape of Europa enjoyed a successful theatrical release, has been a much-broadcast PBS primetime special, was nominated for two national Emmys and a WGA award, and was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar.
She was nominated for an Emmy for directing and co-producing the documentary Sentenced Home, also broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens, which follows three Cambodian refugees in Seattle who are deported back to Cambodia after 9/11. She co-produced They Drew Fire, a widely acclaimed special for PBS about the combat artists of World War II, and wrote the companion book distributed by Harper Collins.
Films she has directed have played at many prestigious venues, including the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Lincoln Center and the Walker Art Museum. Nicole earned a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from Stanford University in 1994.
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Moderator
Executive Editor, Virtual Reality, The Guardian
Francesca Panetta is Executive editor of virtual reality at The Guardian. An multi-award winning digital artist and journalist, she has lead immersive innovation at the Guardian for the last 10 years. She currently runs the Guardian’s in house virtual reality production studio, dedicated to creating groundbreaking content. The studio’s first VR experience ‘a virtual experience of solitary confinement’ won attention around the world as an exemplary case of story and form. Before that she made interactive documentaries, augmented reality sound apps and lead the Guardian’s podcast team.
