WAYS OF KNOWING: A NAVAJO NUCLEAR HISTORY tells the story of the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo community. This film is a unique collaboration between a Navajo storyteller Sunny Dooley and nuclear nonproliferation expert Lovely Umayam where the story of US nuclear history is told through an indigenous lens. This means telling the story of how nuclear policy has impacted Navajo land, but also on the intergenerational impact on the Navajo people. The fully immersive quality of 360 video allows Dooley to preserve the full context of how she would tell the story to her community. This was my favorite interview from SXSW 2025 as it is another great example of how the immersive quality of VR is able to capture and transmit indigenous ways of knowing, and how this indigenous perspective is also changing how nuclear nonproliferation experts are thinking about these nuclear policy issues. This film would also not be able to be told the same way if it was only 180 degrees, and it is a prescient example of the affordances of VR to be able to tell the story of a place with its full relational context.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] 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 slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive stories from South by Southwest 2025, and also continuing my section on looking at comparisons between 360 video and 180 video, today's episode is with a piece called Ways of Knowing a Navajo Nuclear History. So this is a 360 video that is done in collaboration between an indigenous storyteller named Sunny Dooley and a nuclear nonproliferation expert. And so this conversation is really fascinating to me just because I think there's so many ways in which this indigenous perspective really fits into the medium of 360 video. And Sunny actually says that she typically would only tell these stories within a certain context of live face-to-face with her community. And then there's something around the medium of virtual reality that's able to start to preserve enough of the spatial relational context of how stories are told that she feels like it's the perfect medium for her to tell the story. What's also interesting is that the way that the story of nuclear policy and nonproliferation stories are typically told are usually through this kind of chronological what happened in Japan and kind of extrapolating from that, but not necessarily all the things that go into that. specifically the uranium mining that's happening on this Navajo land, that all these mines are still abandoned, are still actively polluting the land. And there's lots of different intergenerational effects of the people that were there at the time helping to mine this uranium, but also through many different generations. And so This piece of Ways of Knowing Nuclear Navajo History is kind of using this indigenous form of storytelling to tell the story and to really orient you to the land. And again, the difference between 360 and 180 is that I don't necessarily think that this piece would work if you were just putting a frame of 180 because it's all around you being oriented from all of the different directions. And so, you know, it just wouldn't work as well just to chop off those perspectives because, you know, a part of the indigenous perspective is to preserve all those different directions. So that's how the medium is changing the way that this story is being told, but also just in this collaboration and finding new ways to tell the story of U.S. nuclear history is also the story of Navajo history. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Sunny and Lovely happened on Sunday, March 9th, 2025 at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:48.658] Sunny Dooley: [untranslated indigenous language introduction] I am of the Saltwater clan, born by the Water's Edge clan. My paternal grandfather is Tsenahapihni clan, and that's a word that doesn't translate into English. And my matrilineal clan, grandfather clan, is the Taring House people. And I come from a place that's called the High Ridge, where the pine trees grow. And it's situated 10 miles north of the Pueblo of Zuni in the state of New Mexico.
[00:03:30.348] Lovely Umayam: Hi, my name is Lovely Umayyam. I'm currently based in Los Angeles, California, and I also go back and forth New York and Washington, D.C. My role in this film, I'm a producer of Ways of Knowing, and I'm actually a nuclear policy researcher, so this is my first time really doing something like this, but I'm really excited about it.
[00:03:53.376] Kent Bye: Yeah, maybe you can each talk a bit about your first introduction to virtual reality technologies and immersive storytelling. Like, how did you get first into this space?
[00:04:03.006] Sunny Dooley: Culturally and traditionally, I'm a Dene Hojonje teller, a net teller, which is a blessing way storyteller. And that has been my calling. within my clan group of where I live in my community. And I have been doing this all of my life, telling stories. And I think the virtual reality has always intrigued me in a sense that I want the individual to become enveloped by the story so that they can completely experience the sensations of story because in my culture when somebody tells a story it's a form of healing so they always say that which means the story will heal you internally to the external and so I think VR sort of does that it's my first time I've ever done anything like this honestly speaking it's the first time I've ever really allowed myself to trust an authentic telling to be prevailed or to be revealed in a format that's not traditionally in a hogan, in a circle, with just my people. This is my gigantic step out of that comfort zone and I trust Lovely and the team that put this film together. That's where I come from. I come from a place of love and trust and I have to have those two qualities in order to be fully revealing a story. So this is a film that encompasses all of that externally as well as internally into the VR experience.
[00:06:08.590] Lovely Umayam: So as someone coming from the nuclear policy field, one of the challenges in what we do is it's very difficult to tell the story to everyday people. There is a big public communications gap when it comes to really reminding people what nuclear threat is because it's been so long since we've really thought about it. A lot of young people today don't really know about it. So to your question about VR, I mean, it's one of the tools, communication tools that have been really intriguing, interesting to my field because it does provide that like first person perspective, that immersive perspective, reminding people of what nuclear history and nuclear policy is. Although I think the ways that VR is usually used. It's, you know, to showcase the mushroom cloud. It can be a little bit of a spectacle. So there is, you know, like a back and forth sort of like interest and criticism around VR. But in meeting Sunny and hearing what she has to say and has to share about her story and her community, we realized that VR could actually be a really great medium for it. And I have to really give my thanks to Kayla Breit, our director, who encouraged us to really consider VR because for what we're trying to do in terms of enveloping people into Sunny's story is to showcase the beauty of her home and her land. I mean you can do that in a 2D format but there's something special about putting on a headset and being transported to her homeland and that in some ways I also had to trust Kayla's vision for that because prior to that I've just been following the critiques like the back and forth about like VR and again like from the field I'm coming from they're really interested in showcasing nuclear trauma and the mushroom cloud and this is the same format, but a very different framing of the story. And so that also, you know, got me excited and we're like, let's experiment with it. And I think it turned out beautifully.
[00:08:26.963] Kent Bye: Before I came to South by Southwest, I was having a discussion with another person in the VR industry. And they were really arguing that for them, the cinematic 180 degree video for Apple Vision Pro, he thought was a format that was going to help this type of immersive storytelling take off. And when you do that, you cut off the ability to look around and see the full context. And so I was coming out of having that conversation where he was arguing to have this 180 degree frame. You know, in a video, in a film, you have a very distinct frame that's very limited. But with 180, you have a little bit less of that frame. But I feel like this is a piece that really works so much better with 360 of allowing me to fully orient myself and place and time into the lands that you're speaking about. And that if you were only focusing on the people, let's say, in some of the different scenes, you would miss the deeper context of where you're at. And so you'd mentioned that you feel like VR is the first time where you feel like you're able to authentically tell some of these stories that were normally within a context where it's with everybody together. And you're maybe able to preserve some of that full context. And so I'd love to hear some of your elaborations on what you see as kind of opening up with the ability of VR to... preserve some of those more relational and contextual dynamics that are usually collapsed in most other media?
[00:09:50.269] Sunny Dooley: In Ways of Knowing, our culture has a word for it, and that word is ani. Ani is a word that can be shortened into the understanding of sense, S-E-N-S-E. As a child, we were raised to believe that we have six senses. And I remember arguing with my third grade teacher, like, she says, you have five senses. And I'm like, no, we have six. We have six senses. And she says, what is the sixth sense? And I didn't know what the word was in English because I learned English until third grade. And I said, it's just called a knee. It's just called a knee. I don't know how to say it in English. And so I'm going to take that word sense and apply it to VR because you are exaggerating your five senses. And the sixth sense is that emotional reaction. And so to me, this is a powerful medium for transformation. I truly believe that. And I like the 360 experience because We are orientated to have six directions. We have the east, the south, the west, the north. We have the earth connection to earth mother, and then we have the connection to sky father. So as five fingered human beings walking on the surface of the earth, we are anchored in six directions. We have six senses. And so this film, Ways of Knowing, exemplifies that in a real beautiful context. It's like, you know how you open a fan, but this is like opening a gigantic fan that becomes like a circle. And in that regard, I think that our ancestors had this orientation. And I say that because they went there through dreaming. They went there through traveling. They went there through telepathy. And I remember my first international trip that I took to Italy 40 some odd years ago, I went to a medicine person, a medicine man, and he's never been more than a hundred miles away from his hogan. And he told me, he says, When you get into that airplane and you're going to fly through the atmosphere, he says, remember to acknowledge the air people, acknowledge the cloud people, acknowledge the precipitation people. You're in their territory. And somewhere along the way, you're going to meet where day meets the night, where the night meets the day. you know you're going to enter into that time frame and be very cognizant of that and i'm going to encourage you to fast on this international trip and then he said you're going to pass these major rivers you're going to pass these major mountain ranges and then you're going to go across the masculine ocean that is the atlantic and he's not using english words this is all taking place in my daniel language And I remember I stayed awake for that entire flight. And at any opportunity, I looked out the plane window. And for me, that was a miraculous trip. I came back. And he even kind of described some of the landscape that I would experience in Italy. And then I came back to him, and I said, . On my return, I said, how did you know where I would travel? Everything you said I saw. And then he says, That's the sixth sense that we have. So, you know, I'm not trying to get all woo-woo about it, but I think this 360 VR experience has the dimension. that is really extraordinary. And that's why I trusted Kayla, I trusted Lovely, I trusted, you know, the entire team because it was a real team effort to put this film together. And it's really beautiful because even though my Navajo Nation has over 523 abandoned uranium mines and the land is contaminated with that extraction industry, 80 years later, You know, we've lived 80 years through the turmoil. And why do I still have this sense of beauty? Why do I still have this sense of holistic orientation? Because we only have one Earth. We only have one planet. And we've got to take care of it, no matter what we do as five-fingered people. And the bottom line of the film is we've got to heal. And if you are a healer, if you feel like you have the inclination to heal, you know, heal yourself first. And so you can begin to heal other life forms. And by talking about nuclear policy, you know, all of the elements of the earth were not meant for us to destroy one another. these elements of the earth, whether they are internal or external, are meant for our well-being. And if we focus on that aspect of it, I think VR is a powerful tool to encourage a transformational mindset.
[00:15:23.885] Kent Bye: Beautiful. Thank you for that. I'd love to hear some of your perspectives as you're coming from some VR background and then working with trying to take some of these indigenous principles and use the medium of VR to both express them, but also explore this as a topic of all the abandoned uranium mines that are on the Navajo Nation land.
[00:15:42.839] Lovely Umayam: Sure. So as someone who comes from the nuclear policy field, we have a very specific perspective, which is often oriented towards countries, nation states. So it's very easy to ignore or erase on the ground land. And ways of knowing as a story almost kind of like flips that and asks the question, what is land to you? And that's to me, again, coming from a very specific field, it's disorienting. It's a reminder that sometimes we forget. through sort of our research that we are operating at this like high level and we're not grounded. And so with focusing on the specific nuclear history in the American Southwest, uranium mines initially for defense-related purposes. That uranium went to Cold War weaponry, and then it eventually transitioned to other industrial uses. But there is that nuclear military history in the American Southwest where a lot of the mines are situated in indigenous lands, specifically Navajo land. You know, it's an eye-opener, I think, for a lot of people, because when we think of nuclear weapons, it's often already a weapon that you use to threaten countries. Again, it's at that very high level. And this is a completely different framing of the story. And what I love, just to go back to some of the things that Sunny's saying about the senses, it's a different definition of space. Because when you put on the headset, it's almost like a clean slate, right? You don't know where you are. You're allowing the story to tell you where you are. And when you watch Ways of Knowing, it is oriented towards the six sacred mountains and the six directions. And it isn't until at the very end where you realize where these six sacred mountains are in relation to state boundaries, the four corners. And I really love that reveal because it puts the indigenous orientation first, the indigenous story first. And I'm really excited to bring it back to my nuclear policy community because I don't think they've had to confront that side of nuclear history where they see land as indigenous land. I mean, they know. I mean, as policy folks, we had to learn about uranium mining in history books in our classrooms. But it's always like a marginal piece of what we learn and ways of knowing is a centering of that. And it can stand alone and shows that it is expertise worth knowing on its own right. And that's why I love our collaboration, Sunny, because you've trusted someone outside of your community to tell this story in this way. And through that, I've also learned as a nuclear policy scholar, someone who's always interested in emerging technologies, including VR, like how can we actually use these technologies in a respectful way? And I think Ways of Knowing is an example of that. Yeah.
[00:19:03.154] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm always really struck when I interview indigenous folks and when they are identifying themselves or introducing themselves, they will sometimes, like you did, identify the family lineages but also the land lineages. And in this film, you're also helping to orient people through this indigenous orientation way of knowing of these different cultures. mountains that are helping to orient you in space and time. And then we learned that part of the uranium mining was directly impacting some of these sacred places. But I'd love to have you maybe elaborate on this more relational mode of identifying with both the past and the present, but also with the land and why you felt that it was important to start this piece out with that same type of orientation.
[00:19:49.269] Sunny Dooley: Well, first and foremost, I am Dineh. Dineh means people. And the very long word that we apply to ourselves is Net Hoka Diyin Dineh. And Net means earth. Hoka means surface. And Diyin means divine. And Dineh means people. So we are all earth surface divine people. And I must respect and acknowledge the divinity of all living life. And it's interesting because what you would call the animal kingdom, the bird kingdom, the reptile kingdom, we only have one word for all of that. And we call them the net, you know, So they are actually an elevated form of Diné. And in every story that we tell, the five-fingered people, human people, usually are 6th, 12th, 24th, or 48th. down the food chain. We are never at the top of the food chain because all of the birds, animals, reptiles and insects and shrubs, all of the greenery, all the waterways, all the airways, they take precedence. And they allow us five fingered earth surface people to survive. So if you're orientated that way, you have a lot of regard for life and you don't take anything randomly or disrespectfully. And so as a little kid, you're always told, you know, be careful where you urinate. Be careful where you defecate because you might be ruining somebody's house. You know, they live there. So you always observe and it's like, oh, OK, you know, I think I can do my business here. And I say that because we didn't have running water. in our homes we didn't have indoor plumbing we had outhouses i mean to this day i still have an outhouse because i don't have running water in my boat and it was only in 2019 that i got electricity in fact when lovely came to my hogan i had no electricity when we started this vr project And so now I have electricity. So that's kind of cool. And it's funny that the first thing I put in my house after I got electricity was, and this completely will just tells you the juxtaposition of how I live. I put up rodent repellents. I gave the mice out of my, oh God, because I was just having a battle with them and they would not listen to me and et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, and you're kind of like going, well, she just said there's all this respect for her. But what I'm saying is that that is the nature of Navajo because we have a word that we call hojo, which means a whole. And then we have another word that means hocho, which means unwhole. And those two exist at the exact same time. And so when we travel about, walk about, whatever we're doing, we know we're holding two separate sides at the very same time. And that, I think, really defines what the English words that apply. They always say, walk in beauty, you know. To me, it's like, no, I'm not walking in beauty. I'm walking holistically. That is the phrase I utilize because my wholeness can be ruined when I walk around the corner. And I have to have the tenacity and the flexibility and the sustainability to encounter the ruin-ness. And I think that's what we really must begin to grow internally in all of us, in our understanding. Because I hear this word, emotional maturity. I think emotional maturity means that you're going to be flexible. You're going to be sustainable. And you're going to have the tenacity to know the difference. you know, in whatever it is you do. So I might kind of be going off on the wayside, but that's how I would orientate your question. And the other thing too, Ken, is here, this is the first time that you're talking to A Diné person who can hold the English language and the Navajo language equally. Because I read, my hobby after I learned how to read was to read the dictionary. So I really love words and it goes back once again to Navajo where it's like which means whatever you say is going to happen. So there is power in words, and there is power in creativity, and there is power in everything that we make and do. So in terms of the indigenous view and mindset, I hope it resonates.
[00:25:05.526] Kent Bye: Yeah, I was really struck by watching this piece because it is really orienting from that indigenous perspective from the beginning. And as you're telling the story, because it's going into the past to show how this has impacted previous generations and how that has rippled through this intergenerational trauma. But it's also got this element of looking to the future to see the future generation. So it's got the past and the future, but also the way that the story is being told that is orienting it through the perspective of the land how because there are these extended durational takes where you're able to really settle into these different locations on the land and you're hearing parts of the story or sometimes there's descriptions and captions that give that additional context that you're reading. But as a viewer, I had this experience of being able to settle into these different places and to hear these stories, but also to get this feeling of both the past and the present and the future of how the kind of mindset of extracting all these uranium minerals in this way that wasn't in right relationship to those communities or to the land and that they're still to this day abandoned and not fully cleaned up and still polluting the lands and the people that live on it so so as you were telling the story i'd love to hear from each of you this way of connecting both the past present the future but also orienting from the land as you tell the specific story
[00:26:27.833] Sunny Dooley: Yes, I really feel like the story that we created is completely successful because that was exactly what we were aiming for to make the past the present and the future all come together in one central understanding and. They have a word for it in Germany, and it's W-Y-R-D, weird. I think it's called weird. And it's actually spinning everything from the past and the future into the present moment. And so in Diné, you know, we call that Hohgrach, which Hohgrach means unknown. spiritual practice and creativity spun into one word so yeah you know i'm happy that you got that sensation and i'm really thrilled that we are making that understanding clear in this film, Ways of Knowing. I mean, you are epitomizing that title, Ways of Knowing. So you're also stepping into a new reality. And so that is just absolutely fascinating and wonderful for me to hear you say that. I'm so happy. Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:44.432] Lovely Umayam: So I really love this line of discussion because it's one of my favorite parts of Ways of Knowing and I think why VR works for this particular story. Because when you put on the headset, I think a lot of people expect it to overstimulate you with a lot of different things swirling around and popping up. But Ways of Knowing is only really presenting what is essential. and what is essential are the land and the people who take care of it. And there is, I think, something poetic about being just enveloped 360 in the land and you're sort of forced to just sit there and look at how the wind is blowing the grass and how the sun is setting and just listening to the stories of the people. It's very simple in that way, but because of that simplicity, it allows you to reflect on temporality, the spectrum of the past, present and future, because it's all sort of allowing you to not only listen to the stories, but also kind of situate yourself as a person in this land like you're in it. And I think from there, that's where you're able to really think about and see space and time differently. And so when I watch Ways of Knowing, because there isn't so many like quick cuts or things kind of popping up, I'm really able to just like look at a rock or like, again, the wind, you know, rustling trees. And it allows me to think about the history of uranium mining. Right. And how. It's a history that is often forgotten or unacknowledged. And how, because of how things, you know, work as a circle, we're kind of like returning to that with what may happen in the future with perhaps more uranium mining or thinking about the 500 plus abandoned uranium mines that haven't been cleaned up. Like the film itself allows you to have all of those things kind of like in your head, and you're just slowly kind of processing it without too much visual stimulation. And I really appreciate that, and I hope others who watch the film as well. Like there's just space to be able to be with yourself, with the land and the people in it, that I think makes it work for me.
[00:30:16.109] Sunny Dooley: And then I would just like to add, as lovely as talking about the future, uranium mining is still happening today. So Pinon Pine uranium mine right at the edge of the south entrance of the Grand Canyon. is now transporting uranium across Navajo land. There's a company, a uranium mining company in Grants, New Mexico, right at the base of Mount Taylor, which is our southern sacred mountain, you know, is being revived. And going back to the Grand Canyon, there's Red Butte. And Red Butte is a very sacred landscape for the Supai and Hualapai and the Paiute and the Navajo people. that live in that region. So it's a consistent and current day concern that we all have because 80 years of living with this mining and extraction industry, we now have young people who their DNA has been altered and we're birthing kids that are DNA different. And it's kind of like you can just look at the Diné people that live here on the Navajo Nation and see what is possible. happening around the world where uranium mining is being revived you don't have to look far you know you cannot isolate yourself from the elements you know we have to be careful we have to care for we have to understand the sanctity of air and water and earth and fire and the metals you know look at your periodic chart that you see in every chemistry class Those are powerful elements. And so we have to be cognizant of that as creators, as people who delve in creativity. It's not just quote-unquote entertainment. Creativity is a transformational form of expression.
[00:32:32.902] Kent Bye: One of the other things that came to mind as I was watching this and listening to you talk about this piece is Tyson Yucca-Porta wrote a book called Sand Talk, where he was sharing some of his indigenous ways of knowing and relating. And one of the things that he went through to write that book was that there was a resistance to write things in a book and to lock them, especially coming from traditions that are more oral traditions. traditions that have a transmission where you are able to either adapt to whatever has changed the next time you tell the story or have people be able to directly engage and interact and have questions and have it more of a conversation. I feel like there's a way in which Tyson did that where he was also having a whole council of elders that he was referencing or drawing images and just multiple ways of accessing the story that he was jumping back and forth between these different modalities. And I'm really struck with how VR, there is that interactive component where you're able to look around, but there's also the kind of the locking in of a story that is, I guess, more similar to like writing a book or a film where as you tell it. But in this case, you have a council of other experts and other people who are coming in and giving their perspective throughout the course of this piece where you get this reflection on the story from different perspectives and different expertise. And so I'd love to hear any of your reflections of starting to work with the medium, like VR, being a lifelong storyteller, and then what are the things that are opening up, but also potentially some of the limitations that are inherent to any type of mass media where you start to lock in a story?
[00:34:02.003] Sunny Dooley: Well, I will say that I started publicly storytelling in the mid-90s. And prior to that, the storytelling, the Hunnet, stayed within my clan families. And when I saw nine Navajo kids at a public elementary school tell me, I've never heard a Navajo story in my life. I thought, God, you're nine years old. You should have like several volumes of stories already stored up in you, you know, because stories are our ways of healing as well as our strength. And it really bothered me to the point where I did ask three Klan brothers who were medicine men. I said, did you know that this exists out there? And I said, we need to share these stories. And they said, we don't. You know what's going to happen. I said, yeah, I know what's going to happen. And they said, yeah, Anglo people are going to hear the story and then they're going to steal it. They're going to write it and publish it. And then it's just going to be dead on a shelf somewhere because Dinesh stories are meant to be told. in person, out loud, because we're speaking words that are powerful to transform. And so one of the things that I entertained when we started making this film, this VR experience, it was before the pandemic. And at that time, I said to myself on a personal level, you know, I talk to myself a lot. So I said, Miss Dooley, you are single, you have no children. You have a lot of stories. You have nobody to pass them on to. I mean, really, like, intimately, like how my mom and my dad told me stories, you know. What are you going to do with all this that you have inside of you? And I had to cross that bridge myself or open up those doorways myself to kind of say, well, you know, it's about time that I go public. in a bigger way because prior to that I did tell stories publicly but in a smaller context. And so I started telling, like, I go to conferences and when people want to know something about Navajo or indigenous people, they call on me, et cetera, et cetera. And so then I just kind of thought, okay, you know, you do all of this and you're still standing. So maybe, and then guess what happened? I met Lovely and we started working together and then I really liked her energy and I just thought you know she's a pest but I can stand her and in a cute kind of way and I say pest because I like people that pester you you know because they always are curious and I like curiosity and her curiosity was very well intentioned and I thought this young lady really wants to know I like that and so that's how I established my relationship with her And then what I'm doing personally is happening here. Here is lovely. I don't take anything for granted. And so it's like, hmm, this is an interesting juxtaposition. So fast forward, we start working. Lovely introduces us to Kayla, the film. We start talking about all of this. And then it's just beautiful because it's all swirling and mixing in a really nice fashion. There are no obstacles. There's no weirdness in it. I mean, strangeness. It's just really nice. And I'm like, this is, yeah, I like this. I like this. And it went back to the three men who gave me permission to tell stories publicly. And they said, you can participate in public tellings of stories when you have that sense of knowing that it's the right way to go. And that really got exemplified during the pandemic. because my nation was severely hit by COVID. And that's when I lost so many elders. And those are libraries collapsing. And I just thought, you know what? You have entered into the fall of your life. know you might not live to 102 you need to get out there and do stuff so that's my mission now is i'm out there doing stuff because i want to leave a positive legacy so that when i transition to the other place i just glide in because they say that if you don't get rid of your wisdom your knowledge your teachings your stories your songs and your ceremonial practices on this side transitioning to the next place is painful and I don't want to have a painful transition I just want to go live over there and you know and continue the evolution because In Dine culture, we don't have an end concept of the world or the planet. We just have a series of evolutions. And we went through the black world, we went through the blue world, we went through the yellow world. We are now probably at the tail end of the changing world. And we're going to go into another world and another world and another world. And having that kind of a mindset tells me creativity rules the world.
[00:39:50.529] Kent Bye: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I'd love to hear some of your reflections on this type of way of telling the story is like a philosophical paradigm shift for how stories are usually told, especially around nuclear policy. So I'd love to hear some of your reflections of this collaboration and finding new ways to tell these stories.
[00:40:07.668] Lovely Umayam: So again, I think it goes back to time. I think when you hear nuclear stories, it's often like this linear, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only two cities bombed where nuclear weapons were used, happened 80 years ago, almost 80 years ago. And now we still have these bombs. And that could happen again. That's pretty much the simplistic, linear story of nuclear threat. You have the past, the present and the future. But I think, Sunny, and why I was so curious to get to know you is like you totally kind of like upended that story. linearity for me in a good way. It's disorienting. And I do again, this is just like what I take away from this film. It's disorienting in a good way, in a refreshing way, in a way that we should be, because I think that that's what we need to get activated. But the way that you upended this linearity for me is that you reminded me that violence continues to happen through uranium mining, right? That you don't need to use nuclear weapons in the future or now to hurt someone because it continues to hurt indigenous peoples today. And so it becomes this circle. And because of that disruption in my timeline, I'm realizing that as someone who wants to see a world free of nuclear weapons, I'm not necessarily fighting for people in the future, but it's for people now and in the past. And that's kind of like a trippy way of thinking about nuclear history and policy. It's very different from how you see it in the headlines. It's always this, when is Russia going to use it? When is Iran going to develop? It's like this callback to it's being used. It has been used. And I really hope that people begin to see that through this film. And, you know, this film isn't, you know, hitting you with facts about nuclear weapons, but it's really trying to tell you something deeper about the story, which has everything to do with space and everything to do with time. Because I think that that's the necessary foundation for you to really understand why We got to know nuclear history. It's not because of an impending doom, you know, like a year from now or 10 years from now. It's because it continues to exist. I hope that makes sense. And it's, you know, a lifelong lesson for me. It's a journey for me. And it's something that I always have to constantly remind myself because I was taught in a very specific way as a nuclear policy scholar. And that's why I love hanging out with Sunny. I love working on this film because it's a completely different way of knowing. And we just really hope that we share this with so many other people. And I think it's also transferable to other issues. It's not just nuclear policy. It's the way that we think of environmental issues, the way that we think about space. You know, like there's just so many things that you could apply this ways of knowing to. Yeah. So this is a very universal story for me.
[00:43:28.163] Kent Bye: Awesome. And as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear where things are going in the future and some deeper reflections on all of this and where it might be heading. But specifically, now you have this experience, Ways of Knowing. It's a 360 video. What's the next plans to have it show? And then also, what would you hope would be the most exalted outcome for this project and what you would see as following steps in terms of changing minds and changing this orientation to be more in relationship to the world around us? Right now, there isn't a lot of priority to clean up all these abandoned uranium mines. And so there hasn't been a deeper story that's being told that is prioritizing that to have money go to that through the government. So this feels like the first step of a much larger journey. But where would you like to see things go from here on out from a project like this?
[00:44:15.583] Sunny Dooley: I really would like to see this film tour. in the southwestern region of the United States. I would like to have this experience be shown in all of the indigenous communities around the world where uranium is still being mined or extracted so that they understand its impact. I would also like this experience to be shown and felt on the 80th commemoration of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima I think it's vital that they see the other side of the world and the compassion and the love that we have for them and even though it was enormously horrible experience I really feel like this film has the building blocks to build bridges and I think that we have the key to every gate that is locked to change people we hope to open up hearts minds and souls to the understanding that they are powerful five-fingered people who can transform the world. I really do believe that. I really believe in its potential and of course all of this relates to money, you know. If we had somebody who has like five million dollars Wouldn't that be wonderful? Because then we could take this film everywhere. But also just start recording other people's stories. Because it is vital we all know where we come from. And if we know where we come from, you don't ever disrespect anybody. And you also have a lot of respect for the place that those people come from. And I think that is really important. So we are seeking funding and I think that all kinds of people can benefit from having a 360 experience about where their belly buttons are buried.
[00:46:39.096] Lovely Umayam: That's awesome. Yeah, I think Sunny covered it. I'm particularly excited about the idea of bringing the film to Japan. We have some friends who are Japanese scholars who are interested in helping us with Japanese subtitled version of the film, specifically to bring it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to connect nuclear survivors together. So it's not just those who are bombed by the United States back in 1945, but also those who have been harmed by the uranium extraction that happened starting in the mid-40s all the way up to the 60s. All of those uranium went into the development of nuclear weapons. And so I think having that international connection and expanding our understanding of who has witnessed and survived nuclear weapons i think it will be really powerful and it would also say beyond just touring the film you know the people who you meet in the film they all have amazing scholarship amazing work that could really help support i think that we have to be realistic with what's about to happen under the current administration and i'm not quite optimistic that Uranium mining cleanup will necessarily happen immediately, especially under these political conditions. But Ways of Knowing tells you that there are community members who are doing that work themselves because they know that in these times, no one's going to do that. Except for them. And so introducing these caretakers, these scholars to people, I hope that people that can then support them directly. Because I think, you know, this really shows the grassroots, the ground truth, and that you don't necessarily have to have a trickle down effect of changing nuclear policy where you have to convince world leaders to do something. I mean, ideally, that's how it works. But realistically, it's very difficult right now. Our geopolitical order is shifting. And so what does it mean to just get as hyperlocal as possible and help those people directly? Yeah. So hopefully we are also able to spread the word about their work and share resources with them.
[00:49:04.127] Kent Bye: Yeah, and just a question that I like to ask all my interviewees is kind of like looking into the future. And as a storyteller, you have all sorts of practices of storytelling, and you've started to explore how to tell these types of stories within the context of these immersive mediums. So I'd love to hear some of your reflections on what you think the ultimate potential of immersive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable.
[00:49:28.143] Sunny Dooley: I really admire that unveiling. of a new kind of energy so any kind any format of creativity however it is generated i really would like to have the creators understand their power and i really hope that that power is positively oriented to benefit all, not just themselves. Because I think right this very moment, we don't have to look very far to see the gigantic burst of creativity that took place. And they're now just in the hands of a few billionaires. And I find that a little bit sad and ironic because had that burst of creativity been equally shared around the world, can you imagine what would have been possible? Oh, that just, I mean, that gives me the chills. And I really do believe now we're coming into that crux, you know, And if there's a road that you've never taken, take it. You know, if there's a door you never knocked on, just open the knob. Don't even knock. I believe that's where we're at. And I am really happy and looking forward to the transformation of the world.
[00:51:37.068] Lovely Umayam: I think for me, the future of VR is bright, so long as the creators are responsible. I think it's important that it has to be human first, story first, before technology. And the technology needs to serve the story, and I think that's what we were able to accomplish with Ways of Knowing, is that we recognized how the technology serves Sunny's story the best. And I think that's the reason why it still feels like film. It is still like story. It's not a spectacle. And I think so long as we see more VR films like that, I think it'll be transformative.
[00:52:20.593] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:52:26.558] Sunny Dooley: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. and let love prevail. And in Diné, we would say . Ditto.
[00:52:43.875] Lovely Umayam: That's it.
[00:52:45.975] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, it's a really beautiful piece. And I really appreciated not only the piece, but also having an opportunity to hear a little bit more about the context of how it all came about and some of your reflections. Yeah, just really powerful and moving. So thank you.
[00:52:57.798] Sunny Dooley: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:53:01.633] Kent Bye: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. And there is a lot that's happening in the world today. And the one place that I find solace is in stories, whether that's a great movie, a documentary, or immersive storytelling. And I love going to these different conferences and festivals and seeing all the different work and talking to all the different artists And sharing that with the community, because I think there's just so much to be learned from listening to someone's process to hear about what they want to tell a story about. And even if you don't have a chance to see it, just to have the opportunity to hear about a project that you might have missed or to learn about it. And so this is a part of my own creative process of capturing these stories and sharing it with a larger community. And if you find that valuable and want to sustain this oral history project that I've been doing for the last decade, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Every amount does indeed help sustain the work that I'm doing here, even if it's just $5 a month. That goes a long way for allowing me to continue to make these trips and to ensure that I can see as much of the work as I can and to talk to as many of the artists as I can and to share that with the larger community. So you can support the podcast at patreon.com. Thanks for listening.
