XR History Award & Jury

Together with the Körber-Stiftung, we presented the XR History Award for the first time this year. The prize of 5,000 euros was to be given to a project using immersive technology to bring history, history education and commemorative culture to life.

During the opening ceremony on June 2, Dr. Paulsen, Chairman of the Körber-Stiftung, presented the XR History Award to the British project “CHILD OF EMPIRE” in front of invited guests.

Fascinating, stirring, mediating and above all relevant – that’s XR History Award winner Child of Empire by Sparsh Ahuja and Erfan Sadaati! This animated (VR) docu-drama immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history: the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, making it an innovative contribution to digital history education.

Initiated by Körber-Stiftung and VRHAM!

International Jury

Laetitia Bochud

A curious mind, formerly a freelance journalist, Laetitia Bochud joined Virtual Switzerland to jumpstart and grow the association. Initially supported by the Swiss innovation agency, Innosuisse, Virtual Switzerland fosters the adoption, integration, and development of immersive technologies across art, academia, and industries. Laetitia thrives on shaping and expanding the community, promoting the #SwissXR talents, and creating opportunities for all XR professionals, as director of Virtual Switzerland in Geneva and as president of XR4Europe, the united European XR ecosystem based in Brussels.

Fiona Fritz

Fiona Fritz is a historian and Programme Director for eCommemoration at Körber-Stiftung’s History and Politics Department. She previously worked as Research Assistant at Kiel University and completed her PhD in 2021. From 2018 to 2020 she designed and coordinated international historical-political projects as well as digital formats for young Europeans at Körber-Stiftung.

Oksana Syhareva

Oksana Syhareva is a director and producer of art and culture projects. In 2016, she founded the Academy of Visual Arts educational project, where film creation is taught. In 2018, she opened Art Hub Samokat, a platform for the development of non-formal education in Kharkiv. In 2019, she founded CinemaLab, a laboratory for the development of films. Since 2018, she has been exploring the possibilities of digital technology for art. She organized the VR / AR conference Art of Change, VR / ART Festival Frontier and VR DOC LAB. She is currently working on her second documentary, UP IN THE AIR, and is preparing an online residency to create VR art.

Victoria Grace Walden

Dr. Victoria Grace Walden is Director of Learning Enhancement and Senior Lecturer in Media at the University of Sussex, where she is a member of the Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies and associate of the Sussex Humanities Lab. She currently holds a British Academy/ Leverhulme Trust small grant for the project ‘Digital Holocaust Memory: Hyperconnective Museums and Archives of the Future’. She is on the Professional Advisory Committee for social media projects for the Claims Conference (Israel) and the Executive Board of the Media Education Association (UK), and co-chairs the Museums and Memory working group of the international Memory Studies Association.

Ulrich Schrauth

Ulrich Schrauth works internationally as a curator, creative director and artist in the field of immersive media. Among other things, he is engaged as Artistic Director of the VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival in Hamburg, as well as XR & Immersive Programmer for the British Film Institute (BFI) and the London Film Festival. He also oversees many international virtual, augmented and mixed reality projects and is in demand worldwide as a keynote speaker, moderator and jury member focusing on immersive art.