24 Jun MIT Open Documentary Lab and Co-Creation Studio Spring 2025 Highlights

 

The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ― Howard Zinn

Independent documentaries, diverse viewpoints and the ecosystem that supports them is needed more than ever. At the lab and studio, we’ve been working hard to support and create a space for documentarians, artists and scholars to explore and interrogate the complexities of our time and create and imagine alternative futures.  Here are a few of the highlights from the semester. 

As always, we would love  to hear from you.  Reach out at opendoclab-contact@mit.edu.

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Tribeca Film Festival Immersive

 

Huge congratulations to all of the creators at Tribeca Immersive 2025!

Visit the full exhibition: June 6-15, 21-22, 28-29, 2025, hosted by WSP at WSA, 161 Water Street New York, 5th & 6th Floor, NY 10038

Learn more about the full lineup at Tribeca Film Festival: In Search of Us

This year’s Tribeca Immersive is in Partnership with Onassis ONX and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute

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Layers of Place: MIT

The MIT Open Documentary Lab’s AR and Public Space Artist Collective mounted an AR exhibit this spring called Layers of Place: Beyond monuments: Reclaiming Space through Augmented Reality. Our interest is in how digital augmentation can reshape our understanding of place and build bridges between people and communities. AR can reveal hidden stories and counter narratives surfaced through co-creation with communities. 

The first three projects launched at the MIT Art Festival, Artfinity this spring: Moving Memory AR by Lori Landay, The Fovnders Pillars by Meghna Singh, Simon Wood and Lesiba Montisela, and 1 to Infinity, MIT by Danny Goldfield. The remaining four launched a few weeks later, They were: Humble Monuments: A Field Guide to the Unseen by Nadav Assor, Rashin Fahandej, Joanna Wright, Open Access Memorial by Yucef Merhi, Oryza: Healing Ground by Tamara Shogaolu, Paper Boat by Mathieu Pradat and Sahar Sajadieh. 

In order to engage people in conversation and creation, we hosted a symposium, panel discussions, workshops and invited community organizations, schools and MIT and local communities. 

Would you like to experience the augmented reality projects in the Layers of Place: MIT exhibit? Group tours are available upon request. Please reach out: opendoclab-contact@mit.edu. 

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The Synthesis: A Monthly Column in Documentary Magazine

The Synthesis continues to do important work that dives into the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and documentary practice. Co-authors Kat Cizek and shirin anlen synthesize the latest intelligence on synthetic media and AI tools—alongside their implications for nonfiction mediamaking. Balancing ethical, labor, and creative concerns, they engage Documentary readers with interviews, analysis, and case studies. The Synthesis is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Co-Creation Studio at MIT’s Open Doc Lab and WITNESS. 

Read the latest from our monthly column:

 

 

Also, Co-Creation Studio’s WORLDING 2025, was featured in an article in XR Must,

highlighting the event’s contributions to the immersive media landscape.

 

 

 

Watch lecture here

 

 

All lectures are livestreamed via Zoom. Recordings are posted on our website after each event. You can view videos of our past lectures here.

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Spotlight

MIT Open Documentary Lab fellows, alumni, and researchers are active leaders in the field, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in documentaries and non-fiction media. Their dedication and innovative spirit continue to drive our mission forward. Here’s a look at some of the outstanding individuals making strides in the world of documentary and immersive media:

• Katerina Cizek (Artistic Director, Research Scientist and co-founder of the Co-Creation Studio) serves as the Chair of the Interactive Board of Jurors for the Peabody Awards, which were presented at a ceremony in LA in early June.
• Pierre-Christophe Gam (ODL Fellow) will present The Sanctuary of Dreams at the Plásmata 3 exhibition in Athens. This immersive installation invites audiences into a dreamlike exploration of African heritage and futurism.
• Damien McDuffie (ODL Alum) conducted an interactive lecture titled “Bringing Art to Life with Augmented Reality” at the Berkeley Center for New Media’s Oakland New Media program and co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies. He showcased Black Terminus AR, a no-code AR editor, demonstrating how augmented reality can amplify diverse voices and cultural narratives.
• Gayatri Parameswaran & Felix Gaedtke (WORLDING alums), and co-founders of NowHere Media, exhibited two works-in-progress at a Human Rights Watch gathering in Toronto, Canada. 
• Ellen Pearlman (ODL Alum), Visiting Research Scholar at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Ellen Pearlman announced her fourth Fulbright award, this time as a Fulbright Specialist to the Center for Environment and Technology Ethics (CETE-P), a research center in Prague mandated under a Horizon Europe Grant. She will collaborate with FAMU, the top film and TV school of the Academy of Performing Arts in the Czech Republic, on a project investigating innovative approaches to AI and art, the environment, and technology ethics.
• Tara Roberts, (ODL Alum) and National Geographic Explorer in Residence Tara Roberts launched her book, Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging at the Museum of African American History in collaboration with WGBH. It’s a memoir of her journey tracing the global slave trade as a scubadiver searching for slave ship artifacts and how that inspired her to plumb her own family history and life as a Black woman. https://www.tararoberts.me/about 
• Sandra Rodriguez (ODL Alum) received the Artistic Achievement Award from the 2025 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. This prestigious Canadian honor recognizes her pioneering work in virtual and mixed reality, contributing significantly to the outreach of Canadian artistic innovation on the international scene.
• Nim Shapira’s (ODL Alum) debut feature documentary, Torn, delves into the controversy surrounding the Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets. The film has been featured at multiple festivals and institutions, including the Miami Jewish Film Festival and the Chelsea Film Festival.
• Tamara Shogaolu (ODL Alum) will premiere Something Real, a live-action comedy short film at the 2025 Tribeca Festival as part of Indeed’s Rising Voices Season 5. Her latest project, Anouschka, an interactive storytelling experience reimagining history through the lens of a young girl traveling across time and cultures, was showcased at SXSW 2025. The project uses play as a tool for learning, critical thinking, and empowerment, inviting audiences to engage with history in a groundbreaking way. 
• Akmyrat Tuyliyev is on the jury for the Primetime Emmys for the Emerging Media category.
• Sarah Wolozin was on the jury for Knight New Work which funds artists in Akron, Detroit and Miami who are working at the intersection of artistic creation and technological innovation. She also was a mentor at the CPH:Dox lab and moderated a panel at SXSW, Aesthetic Access for VR: Centering Disability Arts. 

OpenDocLab Special Spotlight Articles. 

Read interviews with our fellows written by Karen Cirillo: 

• Fusing art, myths and foresight – in the digital and physical spheres, an interview with Pierre-Christophe Gam.
• An interview with Ruoyun Chen

We celebrate the remarkable achievements of our community and look forward to their continued contributions to the field. 

Thank you to our major funders who make this all possible:  Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, Ford Foundation’s Just Films, MacArthur Foundation. 

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Thank you for being a part of our vibrant community!

Warm regards,

MIT Open Documentary Lab and Co-Creation Studio