#1365: “We Speak Their Names in Hushed Tones” Explores Impact of Migration on Families Left Behind in Poetic Immersive Still Life & Audio Documentary

I interviewed We Speak Their Names in Hushed Tones director Omoregie Osakpolor remotely ahead of the SXSW XR Experience 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.

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Music: Fatality

Rough Transcript

[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com-voicesofvr. So continuing on my series of looking at different immersive stories from South by Southwest 2024, Today's episode is with a piece called We Speak Their Names in Hushed Tones, which explores the impact of migration gone wrong on family members who are left behind in Africa. It's blending together spoken and visual poetry in a spatial context of these metaphoric shipping containers, as well as these dramatically lit homes with some really heartbreaking audio testimonials. So I had a chance to talk to the director Omar Reggie to talk more about his process and journey in telling this story But also a little bit more context to electric south which I'll be diving into a little bit more in detail in the next episode with a previous interview that I did with one of the producers of this piece Ingrid Kopp back in 2019 So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Omar Iggy happened on Tuesday, March 5th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.

[00:01:17.666] Omoregie Osakpolor: My name is Omar Iggy Sakpolo. I'm a filmmaker and photographer. Recently, I just got into the XR space. I'm more interested in telling stories about our social issues and looking at culture, looking at the African culture, my culture, against the backdrop of globalization, the remaining part of the culture that hasn't been taken away, that hasn't been fully destroyed. So that's basically me. I live in Lagos, and this is where I work from.

[00:01:53.688] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with VR.

[00:01:59.891] Omoregie Osakpolor: Oh, okay. I think I'm a little bit of a newbie. The first time I actually came across a VR video or 360 film was at an art summit in Lagos. And I saw the VR display and it was really quite impressive. And ever since I felt like, well, I think I wanted to do something like that, even though I never got to like, had the opportunity to. And in 2019, I decided to apply for the Elitic South New Media Lab. Fortunately, I wasn't selected. And I tried again sometime in 2021. Fortunately, I was selected for a project I submitted. It was supposed to be an AR project when I started it. That's what I had in mind. But after I was selected and I had my first meeting with Ingrid, Antoinette, and Tara. After the meeting, I got a better insight into XRM. And I wrote them asking if I could still tweak my concept idea. Yes, I was free to. Because after that, I did a short online course on Coursera on VR and 360 video production. That's when I realized my project was more of a VR piece than an AR. I felt like VR would work more than augmented reality. And I was selected, went to Cape Town in 2022, and that's actually where my VR journey started. I was fortunate enough, my prototype was selected for funding and we worked between 2022 to 2023 where we finally created this piece, fine tuning and building and all working with a team of good technologists in South Africa and Nigeria.

[00:03:43.575] Kent Bye: Right. So it sounds like that the electric South was a pretty key turning point of being able to get involved with the media lab that they were having. And then also as you were producing this, you had a chance to go to Amsterdam for if a doc lab, as well as the Vince production bridge. So maybe you could talk about as you were developing this project, the journey from the different labs and the different places that you were going to, to pitch what this idea was.

[00:04:10.575] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yes. While developing the project, I think going to Venice was a critical turning point for me in terms of how XR will truly work. Prior to that time at the lab, there was a talk that was given by, oh God, I'm trying to remember her name right now, but one of the lecturers. It opened my mind to the possibilities of xr and i was blown away because coming there i only had like a tiny perception of it right being there listening to the advisors and especially that particular lecture i'm trying to remember the name right now i'm gonna get it it was mad blowing and going to venice eventually like finally now consolidated some of the things that I learned at the lab, you know, seeing the works of other creators and seeing what they were doing with VR, you know, was really, really inspiring for me. You know, I felt, okay, oh, this can actually be possible because part of the time, the idea that I had is actually not the final idea. When I got back, a lot changed, a lot of the experience, you know, what we want, the initial experience, a lot changed about it and all that. So it was really inspiring. I got so much inspiration in Venice. And Amsterdam was the same too. I experienced more work in Venice than Amsterdam, but it was really, really good meeting with people who had, who showed interest and having to stop with professionals, industry professionals and all that. And then making their suggestions or accommodations and all that was really quite helpful in fine tuning the project in the long run.

[00:05:41.128] Kent Bye: Yeah. And so maybe you could set a little bit of the context for, you know, how the story came about.

[00:05:47.261] Omoregie Osakpolor: Oh, okay. The story first started as both the photography, it was partially like photography. I had the idea to actually tell the story on migration, especially on missing migrant a while, like some years back, but I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to approach the story. It wasn't until I had the workshop I had, I was organized by UNESCO and an NGO in Nigeria. So the workshop was about reporting on migration, ethical ways to tell migration stories as photographers and as documentary filmmakers. I was selected for the workshop. We had the workshop in Benin. So it was during the workshop, I finally decided to like, I think I want to like actually do this story. But then a problem came, you know, I didn't know how I was going to tell the story in a way that it would be more immersive. Beyond photography, I made portraits, and I knew I wanted to like, okay, photography will be involved, but I needed something more. I made a short video because I thought, okay, let me try to film and see both of them and compare them together. But when I got back to Lagos, I was looking at the footage that I've made. I wasn't really getting that connection. That was one of the reasons I was like, okay, I think I should apply to the lab and see if AR could be a more immersive medium to use. Even though I didn't have a very good knowledge of AR or VR, I just thought it was cool to be more immersive. I just said the word immersive and all that. So it was until I actually got to the lab that it became really clear and I saw the potential and like, this is actually made for this and all that. So that's actually how I came about the story.

[00:07:31.609] Kent Bye: Yeah. Maybe you could also elaborate on the setting of the context of the shipping containers and how they were tying into the deeper story of migration in Africa.

[00:07:42.028] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yes, you know, the container was for me, is a metaphor. I use it as a metaphor. Why moving about like, just like every time you find like a lot of young people from where I come from, trying to get into Europe. It's usually through any means, any means. Sometimes they just go to like the sea and follow any ship. They don't know where the ship is going to, but any ship that is seen at the port here is perceived to be going to Europe, you know. So there have been a lot of them that have actually gone like that. but majority of them actually traveled through Niger and through the Mediterranean. So for me, the container was like a symbol of to present that movement, you know, also to also a metaphor too for the darkness in the mind of these family members back home. You know, when you're in it, you're hearing voices, right? So that's basically that echo is just like a metaphor for their mind, but also to represent that movement from one place to another through the sea.

[00:08:46.272] Kent Bye: Yeah, and so the experience is bookended by a poem in the beginning and a poem in the end, and then the middle of the experience you're going and listening to these family members' stories, talking about losing touch with their loved ones who are migrating out of Africa. And so maybe let's start out the poems that you're bookending this piece with poems at the beginning and the end, maybe could elaborate a little bit more on setting the broader context as people coming into this container and they hear these poems to start and then into the experience.

[00:09:20.434] Omoregie Osakpolor: I started first as a poet when I was starting my journey into the arts. And one thing I've continued is to basically like put poetry, elements of poetry in every piece I create. And this being my first XR project, I wanted to like incorporate that too. Because I believe poetry is actually the most powerful art form, in terms of when you want to speak to the human heart. So that's actually the reason I incorporated that in. The first one basically introduces the setting, and then at the end too, just to bring an element of hope. The first one is basically to put you in the setting, and then the last one is to bring in some element of hope.

[00:10:06.100] Kent Bye: Yeah. And the story is about migration. And you said that you had a chance to go to the whole workshop that is talking around the ethics of how to tell some of these stories. Maybe you could, first of all, set a broader context to globalization and migration, and then maybe elaborate a little bit more on the specific workshop for what type of things you learned there.

[00:10:28.483] Omoregie Osakpolor: Migration is one major issue in the world. It's quite critical. The world has become more polarized, different governments of the world, especially trying to create policies to curb migrants were coming over and all that. So for me, I wanted to look at migration from this aspect of family members of missing migrants, which is something that I feel is really not talked about much. For some of the people there, I grew up with some of them and when they went missing their families could not actually, they're searching for them though, but they couldn't actually use legamies to search for them for fear of being persecuted because the government feels that the parent usually make plans with these people to leave, but most times it is actually not like that. These are young people that just decide to leave and then when they get somewhere they call home and their parents are shocked, you know, but they can actually seek legaments to look for. their loved ones, and then they die in silence. So I wanted to look at migration. I wanted to take the discussion away from these migrant themselves that have become statistics and numbers to the families, all right, who basically call their names and make, they can see that, okay, they're too, they have parents, they have people that they left behind who wanted the best for them. They're left for various reasons. And it's actually not just a result of poverty. So many reasons actually were responsible for it, which are some of the things that I learned at the workshop. In the workshop, we were taught different factors that bring about migration, both the pushing factors and the pulling factors. There are reasons why people leave. It could be as a result of war. It could be as a result of climate change. It could be economic reasons. It could be someone that is basically at home that doesn't find peace and joy anymore. And you feel like, OK, if I leave here, I go to the other side, I would find my joy again. These are like pushing factors. Of course, there are pulling factors. Oh, my friends have done it before and they live a better life now. If I go there too, I too will live a better life. Sometimes the person living here might even have something really good, like a good job that basically brings in good income. But the fact that it feels that the friend now lives a better life than they do over here, they want to go. Those are some of the pulling factors. I did some things that I learned and I wanted to see them too. And I do my course of research and while meeting with these families, some of those things that I saw too, they all did not leave because they were poor. There were different reasons. Yes, the pushing factors were actually responsible for some of them. And that's so.

[00:13:20.631] Kent Bye: So yeah, it sounds like that there's both the pushing and pulling factors to the story. And so you choose to tell the story through the lens of two family members where you go into this room and you sit with them with really quite dramatic lighting in these different scenes. And it's sort of like a podcast at that point, because you see like a little bit of a still life of them looking out a window and really getting me at least this sense of, waiting in despair and just a sadness of the situation. And so maybe you could talk about, first of all, the process of finding the family members to be able to tell the story, and then a little bit about the design process of creating the visuals of that, but also the heart of the story, which is the interviews that you're doing.

[00:14:06.318] Omoregie Osakpolor: Like I said earlier, I grew up with some of these missing migrants, some are family members, some are friends, and some are relatives of my friend. Like in one of the rooms, for instance, the character is my cousin. The person she talked about is also my cousin. I couldn't talk to the mom because she, we don't usually talk about, I don't want to bring up the name of my cousin in her presence, you know, which brought about the title of the piece, We Speak Their Names in Old Stones. I had to watch her, you know, restructure her life around the absence of my cousin Jeremiah. And in Family Guardians, we don't get to mention their names and all that because for fear of bring back the injury, you know, the injury she's feeling. Till today, she still believes he's not dead and he's going to come back someday to her. You know, she's my cousin and finding them wasn't a problem because there were some relatives and some introduced me to some other people too that I didn't know. And they just introduced me to them. So that's basically how I found them. The other room is my friend. We scooted together. and I knew his brother before he went missing. So I approached him if he would want to share a story with me. If his mother would want to share the story, I was like, he told me the mother, she's still too fragile to talk about it. I like he decided to talk about it just like my cousin too. So that's how I found them. They're people that I know, people that are part in my life, that I'm part of their lives too. So as for the technique, we wanted to recreate their personal spaces. you know for the other room i have an idea of how his room looks like it's a direct then i didn't photograph it i just took some photographs on my phone and then decided to recreate it using unity it's not a direct replica of that room but it is very close to where he lives in. I felt like it becomes like an invitation into that space for anybody that sees it, that basically comes for the users to experience. It's like inviting you into the room, like the same way I was invited, you're invited into the room to sit down and then listen to them share their stories. For the other room too, it's still not a direct replica right but it is close to the room where my cousin lives in the village it's pretty close to it but not exactly the same you know so for me i needed to just bring some dramatic effects to it too for the characters it's the photograph that i made of them that we created builds a 3D version of using photographs that I made of them. So they're like photoreal 3D models of these real people. You know, that's basically what I did and all that.

[00:17:03.014] Kent Bye: Yeah, I thought it was really powerful to see what seemed like a very minimalist depiction of their spaces, but the lighting was really dramatic in both of them. Maybe you could talk about the process of creating the lighting and the mood for this project.

[00:17:20.607] Omoregie Osakpolor: Okay. I worked with an amazing team of technologists. Bessing was the technical director. For me right now, he has become my number one go-to when it comes to XR storytelling. We met at the lab in Cape Town, and ever since, he has been a blessing, you know? And Ife, the lead developer, and all that. So for me, if you look at the photographs, I had a vision of how I wanted to represent these people. So from the photograph that I made, I usually shoot with natural light when I'm photographing. So I wanted to create, there's a concept that I use in the portraits, where I have placed them close to the window, Since that's the only source of light that I had in most of the rooms, that's how they all have similar settings. I place them close to the window and I have them looking out of the window, longing for something, of course, which they're actually longing for. And that's usually after I'm done with the interview, because when I'm done with the interview, the memory is fresh. the look becomes so natural because they are now in that mind and all that. And I did one thing too, I went with a therapist kind of counselor, so I don't open the wound and then just leave them like that. So I did that. So after the interview, he talks to them, tries to give them words of encouragement and all that. Then after that, we do the photo session. So I adopted this style of photography where I use natural light or looking through the window and all the places thrown into darkness. And I just look for like a little patch of light behind them, just a little, no matter how little it is and all that. So that was I photographed. So I wanted to bring that same mood with the photographs into the VR space. So that was what inspired me to light it like that, you know, and Jason and Ife did a very good job of bringing my vision to life. So that's how we created it. So when you see the photographs, the photographs and the VR space is the same. It's the same mood, it's the same feel, it's the same lighting that you see in both of them. Light coming from the window and other parts thrown into darkness. and all that. So that's who is basically to represent that darkness in their mind. That's that darkness that they feel, that emptiness that they feel with the absence that they caused them. That idea of still waiting for something. You hope and pray that it happens someday, even though in between that hoping you feel like something tells you are they truly alive? Something tells them and then you forget, oh, I think they are dead. Then the next moment you say, no, they're actually alive. You know, someday they will come back. That, this also, that's basically what I was trying to represent with that darkness. You know, that's what I took from that. I did with the photograph and I transferred it to the VR space. And there's just that light there that creates that hope. And the other parts, there's this darkness that you feel, but then the other part, there's this light that you still hope that someday they will come back home. So that's basically what inspired the lighting.

[00:20:25.261] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think it's a really effective way of using the visual affordances of the medium to create this in-between space or liminal space of waiting and not knowing and the uncertainty that they're going through. I think that really translates as I go into these spaces and listen to their stories. And the other thing I think was also helping to set a little bit of a subtle context and mood was the sound effects and sound design of the rain that's happening. Maybe you could talk about the process of adding the spatial audio and the rain in the course of this piece, because I feel like that was also helping to set an underlying tone.

[00:21:02.841] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yeah, again, I worked with a very brilliant Gavan, Gavan Eckhart, quite an amazing VR sound designer. Again, I met him through Electric South in one of our monthly meetups. he was brought to teach us sound design in the VR space and all that. So after the class, we connected and all that. So when I was doing this, I gave him my vision. I explained everything to him and I gave him my vision and asked him to play around with the beat and all that. So he sent this and that really worked. And I felt like, okay, you know what, because we needed to create one of the rooms is actually in the city and the other one is in the village. So I wanted to put the audience in this setting. I told him, okay, a night scene in West African village. What are the kind of sound you hear? I told him, what you hear, like the sounds of cricket, you know, if you've been to like West African village, that sound you hear, it's pretty dark. And then you hear the sounds of this cricket, you know, and then you see the lantern, you can see the lantern in the room, right? There's one at the back, there's another one there. so licensing of the space and all that. And when it rains, that's basically how it feels like, or sound like rather, when you are in my village where I grew up, that's how it sounds like at night when it's raining. When the rain has actually stopped, but then it's still drizzling, you just hear the sound of the rain on the roof. and then in between that you're hearing some of the crickets and all that. So that was basically to bring you into that space, that for the other room. And then the other one too, it is just to give us a feel of a city, you know, sounds of little cars, you know, were distinct far away from there, but you could still hear them, you could still tell them and all that. So I wanted to bring the audience into that setting, into the city too, into the space and the community where they actually live. And Gavin did a very good work in bringing that vision to life.

[00:23:02.944] Kent Bye: Yeah and I actually had a chance to see this piece twice because I have a build at home and so the first time that I watched it when I was sitting across from each of the different characters that are talking about their family members who were in the process of migrating and losing touch with them and you know the whole journey I was paying attention to how they're moving and the motions And then I found that the animation starts to loop. The second time I watched it, I started to shut my eyes, just listen to them rather than trying to look at the visuals. Cause I knew what the visuals are doing. The first time, as I'm watching an experience, I'm trying to understand what's happening in the story and pay attention to everything. But then the second time I was like, you know, this is kind of like a podcast where I'm just listening to the story. I understand what the visuals are, but I'd love to hear you elaborate on that a little bit because you have. What's essentially a little bit like a still life where you had them not move at all. You're sitting down and you're sitting across from them and listening to their story. So I'd love to hear you elaborate on that process of creating both the visuals and the audio working together there.

[00:24:08.237] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yeah, you know, being like a first timer and working with something that's new to me, so I still wanted like a little bit of movement, you know, even though it was steel and all that, I wanted a little bit of movement just so they're not really like static all through, you know. So the audio is actually like the major element there. That's why when you sit down, you really can't move, you can't stand up again until the audio is over and all that. So it's basically like, okay, you can sit and listen and all that. So the movement was just for me because I thought it was too still, you know, I just wanted to add that little bit of movement. And then you just feel like, oh, they're still feeling sad and just really pretty sad and all that had any between talk and all that. So they kind of move and all that so that they're not just all still all through. So that was basically my thought when we decided to like add element of movement a bit.

[00:25:03.324] Kent Bye: Yeah, I feel like there's an element of the story that is this cycles of repeating and just waiting. So there's this sense of this eternal loop in some ways. And so the looping ends up in some ways reflecting that process of just waiting. So yeah, love to have you maybe elaborate on trying to depict this process of being in this liminal space of in-between and not knowing, and the despair that comes from that type of waiting.

[00:25:34.510] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yeah. It's not a very good space to be in. If I were to look at my other photographs, I interviewed her, but she's not part of the VR piece. I didn't put her story in and all that. Looking at her life and seeing how that idea of waiting and basically what it's actually done to her. She's grown older than her age and just waiting that someday this cause in her mind would come back soon. I think it does a lot to the mind psychologically, you know, that idea of the process of healing from grief starts with acceptance of the reality. When you don't accept that, okay, this has happened, there's still that wound that is open. So you're still grieving and there's no acceptance of healing. The process hasn't even started yet. So it does a lot to the mind. I haven't really been, I'll say that I'm a secondary victim of it because he had my cousins. I do not feel it as much as the mother does. And I do not feel as much as my other cousins do, you know, directly involved. But then even when they do all this too, then the mother is actually the person that feels it more, you know. And now my uncle recently died and the burial is happening later this time. And I won't be going because I'll be going to the US, but I could already imagine what she would feel like right now because my older cousin is supposed to be there right now to bury her father and she won't be there. And my aunt believes she's somewhere, somewhere, and she would come back home someday soon and all that. So I really can't imagine what it feels like to be in that kind of dark space and all that.

[00:27:25.094] Kent Bye: Yeah, you had mentioned that there's a line in the last poem that talks about mumbling or speaking their names in hushed tones. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that.

[00:27:36.798] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yeah. In where I grew up, there are certain things you don't like we do a lot of things in secrecy, you know. Even when I was about to start a project, I had the idea to start the project, my mom told me she wasn't going to let me do it. Her reason was that I was going to be opening up old wounds, you know, something that I'm trying to forget. Me going to them to ask them questions, I was going to be bringing it back, bringing back wounds that they're trying to heal. you know, and I saw sense in what she said. So I postponed it. I didn't do it. I didn't bother that side of the project until after that workshop, about two years later, you know. The reason is that, you know, sometimes we just let, even if this is what, but they don't talk about it, leave it, just leave it, even if we understand. So there's this concept of secrecy that we basically practice in Nigeria, you know. So we speak their names in Auschwitz. Whenever I want to talk about these people in family gatherings, when we want to mention the names like that, you don't say it where their relatives are. Then if at all you're going to basically say it, you ush, you mention the names. well, this is the brother of this person. You know, that's basically how we communicate around them and all that, because you don't want to bring back old wounds. That's where the name, the title of the piece came from. We speak their names in Auschwitz. We call, we mention them in Auschwitz. You don't basically speak loud about them anymore because you don't want to bring back old wounds.

[00:29:10.580] Kent Bye: What was the turning point from where you became convinced that this story needed to be told? Cause you you're getting resistance from your family and you mentioned that you had learned something from the workshop. And so was it the idea that by telling the story would be feeling within itself or at least having the opportunity to have other people bear witness to the story could have some deeper impact. Maybe you could elaborate on that, that turning point that you needed to tell the story.

[00:29:41.007] Omoregie Osakpolor: During the workshop, I was going back home one of these days, and I was in a car. And on the radio, they were discussing migration, and how a lot of religious people, pastors, and traditional witch doctors were making a lot of money off these family members. if you listen to the stories where she talked about how they've been to seeing spiritualists and these spiritualists keep telling them this person is alive this person is alive and they charge them to consult them and all that you know and because we are a very very spiritual people we believe so much in in the words that comes out of the mouth of these pastors and then these which doctors, you know. So when they say A, the people tend to somewhat believe in that A, you know. It is not seen as a problem that could basically be solved medically and all that. I have basically seen that a lot of these people are just working with such wounds and no help. There's nobody talking about them because one, even they themselves are afraid to come out, like I said earlier, for fear of being persecuted or stigmatized, you know? So they're just alone. Each of them fighting their battles alone, you know? And then spending the little money that they have on searching for their loved ones in the best way that they know, which is going through the spiritual route, you know? I felt that, there was a need for their stories to be heard, you know? There was a need for their stories to be heard because I felt they need some medical attention in terms of having a support group, like coming up with an initiative would bring them all together, like have support groups, have like people, the psychologists that go talk to them, that meet them where they can actually all come together to share their stories. And if it's possible, there could be ways that they could bring up the names of this family of their missing loved one, the pictures and all that. So just share it out there. And if eventually in the future, the EU decides, of course, to start funding such parties properly, you know, for missing migrants on the sea and all that. So this was actually like the reason that I said, like, you know what, I need to tell the story and I need to do it now because there was no better time to do it now. you know seeing them going through that and all that in silence because really nobody they don't they can't even go to the government in for instance in benin they can't go to the government office and say we're looking for the first they might be persecuted because there is a law that has been placed against human trafficking you know but sometimes not sometimes most times these parents don't even know when their children are living you know, but how can they make this argument with the government? They can't make this kind of argument, you know. So for me, I feel like projects like Telling Their Stories would basically help put their story out there and find a collective solution to the issue. First, of course, with that support groups that will provide them with psychosocial support, you know, and other things that might come out from it. But first of all, that's always what I'm keen on, you know, so instead of them wasting money and all that, so they need help with that. They need that kind of help that they don't even know that they need.

[00:33:02.262] Kent Bye: Yeah, that makes sense. And have you had a chance to show this VR experience to the family members of the people that are featured in this piece?

[00:33:11.837] Omoregie Osakpolor: not yet i've only been able to show one which is the male character yeah i've shown him but it's a screen recording because i don't have the full gadget to basically like have like a screening yet yeah you know that's basically what i'm planning to do hopefully because i want to have a full installation, you know, in Benin city and have them come around, see it and have like a student like from schools and just have like a campaign, you know, where they all come around and see it, both the people and those in government and everybody in like NGOs in this space and all that and school children and students and everybody and all that. So I want to like have a full installation in Benin and bring it also to Lagos and all that. So that's one thing that I'm planning to do under the course of the year.

[00:34:03.563] Kent Bye: Yeah, it sounds like that from the laws around human trafficking, there's fears that if people speak about it, then they actually might get arrested, even though they may have not had anything to do with it. Yes. But yet there seems to be a broader taboo around this topic where people are in many ways suffering with their grief and silence on their own and not being able to speak about what their experiences are or share their stories. And so, yeah. It feels like a piece like this and a campaign could help to either help to create a context for people to share their experiences or to maybe bring more awareness to the government to maybe change some of the laws. So what would you imagine what would be the best case scenario for how this project could help to not only address some of the needs of the community, but maybe have broader implications for people within the context of the government watching it and potentially changing some of the ways that they may be enforcing these laws.

[00:35:01.296] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yeah, for me, what I am hoping for is that after seeing this piece, it softens their heart, you know, to basically see that, okay, yes, why some parents are fully aware of what they're doing, but the majority are not aware, you know, so you cannot basically make a law to criminalize this and it affects everyone, even those that are aware and those that are not aware, you know. But there's a particular story of a woman that, in fact, are two sons right now. The first one left and she hasn't heard from him for long. She didn't know when he even left. She just got a call. She was on the farm working and then she got a call. Where are you? Why are you calling with a foreign number? She was like, oh, I just had to do it. The suffering is too much and I think I have to do this for you. But then she was like, but Danny, why didn't you tell me you should have gone? Because she's seen people, we hear stories of people that have died and all that. I can't particularly remember there was a time in my community that was a particular period in my community, I think 2000, I think 2006 or something like that, where on the streets, almost one in three houses lost somebody. you know, when a boat meets up on the Mediterranean, you know, I can never forget it, you know. So these people get to hear this and all that, so they don't want to treat it like, oh, that's what you can do, and all that. But some of these young people do things, they've gone ahead and all that. So when you're not criminalized, so what happens to that kind of woman? So how do you expect that kind of person to come to the government and say, well, I'm searching for my child and all that, you know? So she keeps taking even the little money that she has to go to the spiritualist, and the spiritualist keeps telling her, your child will come back to you someday. you know, she can't seek for medical attention because she doesn't even know that something is eating at her mentally already, that's basically affecting her mental health. She doesn't even know, you know. So for me, the peace and the conversation that would follow during the campaign period would first basically soften the heart of this policy makers, that's what I'm hoping for. When they come around and they see the piece and then we have conversation, everybody talk about it and all that. So that's basically what I'm aiming for, you know. So beyond the push for a support, a psychosocial support group for these families, that's basically what I'm hoping for.

[00:37:19.809] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I wanted to share some feedback on the very ending of the piece because I found it really deeply moving. You end it with a poem, but there's also this very poetic visual representation of being in the shipping container that you're starting off in and you're going through these doors to listen to these stories and you're coming back into the container, but your locomotion is frozen. You're standing there. There's a hole in this shipping container that has light coming through and you see the animation of the light. So it shows the passage of time. And then you're listening to this poem, reflecting on speaking these names in hushed tones, but also seeing the side of this container that for me gives you the sense of like, You said it's a metaphor for migration, but it also feels like you're trapped in this prison of this despair and emotions and you have this portal that dissolves away and you see the ocean and then this really beautiful sunset animated in VR and that For me, the symbolism of the sunset and the endings and the closing, because it feels like these stories are all about being in this lack of having some sort of closure within their experiences. They're left in this loop of Not knowing or still having hope and not able to fully grieve because there is still potential. They could just show up because they don't have the full information. And so. You give this sense of at least trying to bring about some closure through the metaphor of a sunset, but I'd love to have you expand upon this ending sequence, because I feel like it's really tapping into your background as a poet and giving this visual poetry to really buy everything together.

[00:39:04.343] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yes, there were some elements that I really wanted us to like infuse in it and all that. And you actually got that right. The sunset was to give a kind of, it's dark all through, you know, it's to give a sense of hope, you know, that maybe truly someday someone will actually come back because I've had an experience of someone who actually came back after 10 years. You know, I tell the story all the time and I've forgotten the year now, but I was in my 10th year at school. So there was this neighbor that we used to live together, my mom. So part of the time, our child as a son had been missing for a long time. On the 10th year, it was Christmas. I was inside with my mom and all that, when we had this sound, this noise and all that. What happened? We came out, she was crying, she was dancing, she was laughing. She was, what happened with her? She was like, her son is back, her son is back, her son is back. You know, she walked someone to the bus stop and when she got to the bus stop, a sun was coming down from a bus. It was a lighting from the bus. And when she saw him, she was like, she called his name. She called his name and then he answered. She called his name and he answered. And then after being away for 10 years, he tried, of course, he went missing. He tried to travel to Europe, of course, through regular routes. He got imprisoned. So he was there all through the while that they lost contact, lost communication and all that. He was alive. you know. So when he came back, he went to where they used to live and they told him these family members had moved. So that's where he came searching for her, you know. So that, maybe perhaps sometimes, maybe perhaps some of them might actually come back or they may not. But that hope was reflected with the sunlight, you know, despite all this darkness and all that, you know, there's an element of hope, you know, and hopefully eventually some of them might come back, you know.

[00:41:04.277] Kent Bye: Hmm. Yeah. Like I said, I thought it was a really beautiful end and the poetry that's there as well as like you said, poetry is a medium that it's a really moving medium. So yeah, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'm curious what you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality and this type of immersive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable.

[00:41:27.278] Omoregie Osakpolor: You know, for me, exploring this, it's what I so much enjoyed, like just how I felt when I first saw a 360 video, that sense of being in a space and getting connected with these people. By that period, I've never been to Europe and there was in one city room in a European city, like in Europe, you know, it felt so cool. Like I remember in the space going out to look out of the window and I see in the streets and I felt like I was there, you know, that was what I felt. So that's what I see like VR, like XR doing, you know. giving people the opportunity to basically like be part of a story and not just now as an outsider but you basically being part of a story that immersiveness is basically would actually have like a very strong potential and bringing connection connecting words and not just that so you basically understand myself understand me more really when you see this piece for instance you're basically transported into like a room or a house in any city and listen to this person more, you basically get to understand them more, connect with them more, and probably you get to let go of some of the biases that you had before that time. So that's basically what I feel VR will do. It will help us in breaking biases and bringing us together more. That's the future that I basically see for VR.

[00:42:54.181] Kent Bye: Awesome. And is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?

[00:43:00.417] Omoregie Osakpolor: Uh, I don't think so for now, except for me, I just want to like connect with more people and learn and yeah, just connect with more people, get really involved in the community and yeah, just for us to just connect more. That's basically what I have to say. Yeah. There's a need for us to connect more and share knowledge. Uh, yeah.

[00:43:22.610] Kent Bye: Are you going to have a chance to go to Austin for South by Southwest?

[00:43:27.661] Omoregie Osakpolor: Yes, I'll be there. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to how the piece is received and the conversation that would follow afterwards. I'm actually looking forward to it.

[00:43:40.681] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Omar Reggie, thank you so much for coming on and sharing a little bit more about We Speak Their Names and Hush Tones and, you know, your journey into the space and the process of telling a story. I think it's really powerful to sit and bear witness to some of these stories in the way that you're providing this whole poetic and virtual context to be able to receive and bear witness to the experience of family members as they experience this kind of loss and grief of this global context of migration and globalization and how it impacts the families there in Africa and Nigeria. So thanks again for coming on to help share a little more context and to share your story. So thank you.

[00:44:18.958] Omoregie Osakpolor: Thank you so much. Uh, thanks for the time, man. Thank you for what you do. It's really inspiring what you do with Voices of Yaro. Like when I found it, like, Oh yeah, I think I found this cool, you know, like listening to all these professionals and all that, like, it's going to be like a very valuable place for us rightly on the continent to like learn a lot.

[00:44:40.208] Kent Bye: So thank you too. Yeah. You're, you're quite welcome. It's really great to hear. So thank you. So thanks again for listening to this interview. This is usually where I would share some additional takeaways, but I've started to do a little bit more real-time takeaways at the end of my conversations with folks to give some of my impressions. And I think as time goes on, I'm going to figure out how to use XR technologies within the context of the VoicesofVR.com website itself too. do these type of spatial visualizations. So I'm putting a lot of my energy on thinking about that a lot more right now. But if you do want a little bit more in-depth conversations around some of these different ideas around immersive storytelling, I highly recommend a talk that I gave on YouTube. You can search for StoryCon Keynote, Kent Bye. I did a whole primer on presence, immersive storytelling, and experiential design. So, that's all that I have for today, and I just want to thank you all for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listener-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. So you could become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.

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