Home is an introspective virtual reality experience about navigating belonging and finding a home away from the familiar.

*Project developed as a grad student at NYU’s ITP

As a migrant and a child of migrants, my life has been defined by distance and finding a sense of belonging. I grew up in Peru, a country that suffered a deep economic, social, and political crisis during the 80s and 90s. When I was twelve, my father migrated to the United States, looking for better economic opportunities. Because of the distance, keeping in touch with him was very difficult. It was this distance that got me interested in the world beyond Peru. In the following years, I also migrated and became a photojournalist, a job that took me around the world. Constantly moving and disconnected from my family and where I was born, I struggled to answer the question, "Where is home for you?"

Using photogrammetry and digitally-generated environments, I recreated a selection of my memories, which I used as the VR experience's narrative foundation.

Process

This project was developed as my graduate thesis project at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)
During the 5-minute long, seated experience, the player travels through four different scenes while listening to a narration. The narration tells the story of my relationship with home, from realizing I couldn’t name a place I comfortably I could call home, to creating my own definition.

The final script was
Story boarding
Prototype
Final Version
Technical details: seated, 5 minutes, Unreal,
Credits