I spoke with Rashin Fahandej about A Father’s Lullaby at Tribeca Immersive 2025. See more context in the rough transcript below. (Photo by Mikhail Mishin courtesy of Onassis ONX)
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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. This is my last interview from Tribeca Immersive 2025, and I'll be diving into some other associated coverage that I did within the context of New York City after I dive into some con immersive coverage within the next three episodes. But fast forward three more episodes to see my other coverage that were happening in the the Onyx Studios summer showcase of different XR creators. So today's episode is about a piece called A Father's Lullaby and Lullabies Through Time. So in the previous episode, I had a chance to talk to the creator, Rasheen Farrandesh, a couple of years ago at Tribeca Immersive 2023, where We kind of recorded a process conversation around her work. And this year, I finally got a chance to see the project, which has many different parts. And so there's like an installation where you walk in, there's like a three channel video installation where you see a series of different people from a community. There's kind of a mix of people who are formerly incarcerated fathers, but also people who are not formerly incarcerated. There's kind of a not knowing as to who was formerly incarcerated or not. They're kind of all blended together, but they're all singing lullabies to their children. And so the implication is that these were fathers that were disconnected from their children. And so there's quite a bit of sorrow of not being a part of their children's life. And so so much of the video installation part is more on the singing and the emotionality of this absence and this grief. And there's some haptic panels that light up. So you go up and you put your hand on it, it'll light up and give you a bit of this like haptic feedback. But then you'll get to listen to the actual oral history interviews from a lot of these community members talking about their experiences of incarceration. Then you go outside and there is like a series of iPads, like a mobile application where if you're walking around Boston and then around where a lot of these oral history interviews were interviewed, you can use the application to zoom in and to listen to some of these oral history interviews or look like there's some like guided tour walks that you can go on. Then there's a whole other like augmented reality component where you go outside and take a picture of a poster and then a whole other augmented reality experience would come up as you're walking to the memorial for the slave trade that's right there on Wall Street. And then there's another augmented reality series where you're walking into the the river and like other kind of installation components and audio and sound. And then you get finally to the river and there's yet another augmented reality slash audio piece that you're listening to, to both hear some of the lullabies as well as just this beautiful piece of music. And you're kind of meditating on like, this is a place where a lot of these slaves would be brought in and taking in to be a part of the slave trade market there on wall street. So it's really quite a robust and expansive project. And what Rasheen says is that's really only about 20% of the project is represented by this vast archive of oral history interviews and other things that you're seeing at the project, but that the majority, like 80% of it, was really focused on creating a context for these communities to come together and to find new ways to use the emerging media to facilitate connections. So she talks a bit about her work at Emerson College and teaching these classes and bringing these formerly incarcerated folks in and teaching them how to use these different emerging technologies, but also to capture their stories that are included in this broader oral history project. But being a part of the MIT Open Doc Lab, as well as the MIT Co-Creation Studio, there's quite a lot of focus of seeing how there could be a broader community building aspect to some of these different types of projects. So we go into that quite a lot as well. In the previous interview that I did with Rasheen, you can hear even more about that process of using emerging technologies as a process of building community. So we'll be covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with the machine happened on Saturday, June 7th, 2025 at Tribeca Immersive in New York City, New York. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:04:14.728] Rashin Fahandej: Hi, my name is Roisin Fahandej. I am an immersive filmmaker, cultural activist and futurist. Maybe that kind of would be the way of describing. My work is at the intersection of art and technology and social justice. I work on projects that they are generally multi-year, research-based and engage the community in the process. It really considers what it means to make the artistic process itself as an accessible and a giving aspect of the work. What does it mean to use emerging media and technology as a way of creating alternative communities? bringing people from different sides of the narrative and the story or different parts of the institutional power together to think about it, to collapse and bridge the divides and to be able to come together from some shared moments and shared personal history to think about those social issues. or the urgent social challenges that we are dealing with. But at the heart of my work, what I'm really interested in is system and system design and future thinking and system thinking. But coming to all of those from a very intimate, sort of visceral, emotional, embodied way and using emerging technology as a way of expanding our bodies and ourselves and connecting across the differences.
[00:05:52.386] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into this space.
[00:05:57.088] Rashin Fahandej: Sure. So I am an Iranian American. So I grew up in Iran as a woman and as a persecuted minority. So the idea of systemic persecution and discrimination and systemic marginalization or system violence is again something that I'm really mindful of. And I think about it from this point of view of when we live within systems that we design or we are participating, living in those systems, what is our responsibility? When there is this silence or very... clear violence is that it's happening to a certain group of people or marginalized communities. So my background actually is I have long history of painting. So I was a painter and fine artist for many years and then shifted to time-based media and particularly thinking about immersive storytelling, breaking the singularity of a frame and multiplicity of ways to think about digital presence and physical presence and collectivist storytelling. So I became really interested in exploring those. But I come to the digital from a very haptic way of looking and thinking, both visuals and also sonic, like really thinking about the haptic qualities of these digital mediums that we use.
[00:07:30.666] Kent Bye: And are you part of the MIT co-creation lab as well?
[00:07:33.883] Rashin Fahandej: Yeah, so the project that is here at Tribeca was incubated at MIT Open Documentary Lab and also Mayor's Office in Boston. MIT Open Documentary Lab and Co-Creation Studio, they're kind of home. I've been there for seven, eight years right now. So I started as a fellow and now I'm a senior researcher, more working as a mentor and supporting different initiatives that we do at the lab. Yes, so it's been an amazing community that it's been grounding, both from the space of ethical and criticality that we really care for at the lab, really thinking about the potentials of the mediums and emerging media that comes in. through like how we can use them for cultural shift and social change but also the challenges that they bring but also in terms of community and I feel like the moment that we are now recognizing how much the communities we need each other and coming together and thinking through all of these issues challenges potentials possibilities so it's been a wonderful community as a way of bringing so many different thinkers makers from many different disciplines across the world and then everybody share very generously they process their work and critique each other and work with each other and create different initiatives so we have ar public space we have ar filmmaking we have co-creation yes so i am part of that group but also i teach emerging and interactive media at emerson college so that's another full-time life
[00:09:19.622] Kent Bye: Yeah, and we actually had a conversation around this piece, Father's Lullaby, a couple of years ago, but that was before I had a chance to see it. And so now that you spent another couple of years working on it and we're back here at Tribeca in 2025, it's premiering here at Tribeca. So maybe you could take me back. It sounds like it's a project that you've been working on for a number of years. It's got lots of different dimensions from like a video component and... music, but also like there's oral history parts and installation parts and augmented reality. It's really like across all the different media that you're putting it all together. And so I'm just curious if you give a bit more context and backstory for where did Father's Lobby first begin?
[00:09:58.316] Rashin Fahandej: so it's almost a decade of work and research and community engagement so it was about a decade ago when i was thinking about when we are thinking about social issues i was for a very long time in a studio artist like really working as a studio artist but when i came to united states there was a kind of need for creating kind of a political statement around co-creation and collaboration across differences because there was a very strong sort of expectation for me to create certain form of art or expressions as a woman coming from Middle East or from Iran and that it sort of really shifted my mindset around the possibilities and potential thinking about where I am and where is home now and who are my audience what are the issues that we are looking at that they are across the globe but they just coming up in a many different shape and form but they work on the same sort of system level form of oppression or power dynamic so the genesis of the project is that so i taught a lot of after-school programs when i when i was going through undergrad and graduate school in boston in inner city boston working with youths a lot and one issue that it was so pronounced and very challenging for me to understand or phantom was the fact that students were dealing with so much violence within the city in a democratic society that my students were coming with all these rest in peace pins that they were on their hats on their bags this is like two decades ago they were talking about Stop and frisk, police violence, gang violence, all of these issues. When I was looking at the research, inner city youth's experience was compared to active war zones. When you think about system, you always think about systems have flaws, like any complex system would have. But it wasn't until I became artist in residence with the mayor's office and I was following police officers, I was working with different departments, so it was a very interesting program in terms of how it was embedding artists within the institutions to think about social issues from that perspective as well as the community. that I started developing this looking at the policies basically and really being shocked by the way that the laws and regulations and policies were put in place to really create this system of mass incarceration and the lineage of that to the slavery and this sort of methodology of disrupting the family nuclear from the time of indigenous communities, from slavery, from immigration, to mass incarceration, to sort of disrupt the place that these children, the next generation, were getting this care and love to grow. And I saw a direct correlation between those policies and the experience that my youths that I was working with were dealing with. Most of them, they didn't have their fathers around. Their home was getting raided. continuously through the you know the gang groups so that's kind of the social context of it but in terms of philosophy and methodology i talk about art as ecosystem and really thinking about what does it mean to create artistic practice or artistic form or projects that they respond to social issues so they are not just a hype that you do something a project and you move on or you parachute to a community and then you just like move on you do your project and you move on and what does it mean to really think about the art as an ecosystem the art mimicking the social structure and social system and it becomes this sort of bridge and to connect different institutions different mindset different group of people So with this project, it became a methodology for me. So I talk about it around, and I use emerging media technology as a way of really creating this sandbox of exploration and thinking and playfulness. And it's interesting because it has a form of... because of its novelty. It has this form of curiosity, but also it's intimidating. So you can put people together from different dynamic and everybody is intimidated by it while they are like interested to explore it. So I really love this aspect of the emerging media as a way of bringing people together to explore and to think, to process these social issues together and also the co-creation aspect of it. So these became tool to think about, okay, how to, create projects that they are not a one-year project or two-year project but they actually become a system and they grow so it's already a decade and for me it's like just the beginning of it like now I'm thinking okay how could Tribeca become this platform for it to to travel and then to engage with different communities and it meant and it's designed to change and it be an organic life form that as it grows and it goes to the next community it's a call to action. So I have different methodologies that I engage with the communities from pedagogical models to workshops to open calls. But I work with different institutions that they are within the community and work with community from different capacity. So for example, in the city of Boston, I work with Office of Returning Citizen. With the probation office and nurturing fathers program that they run there with the federal court and also a lot of nonprofit and activist groups that they are working in this space. And also, for example, I also teach a course in Emerson College for the past five years that I bring students. together formerly incarcerated fathers and probation officers together with the students that they work with emerging media and they create their own work with their children so it's a way for them to really use this semester-long space and come from across these very different power dynamics and very different experiences to the system but then come with the shared experiences of fatherhood or being children as in students and then work together to think through all of these issues and then tell personal stories from those perspectives. So the project itself, if I explain what the project actually is right now, it has many different folds because it's a big archive and it's a growing archive so that's the most important aspect of it. It's an oral history It's a big archive of lullabies and memories from community members to formerly incarcerated fathers. So there are federal judges, there are probation officers, there are artists. So it's very much about calling for action, but the action being this sort of poetic, tender space of care and sharing the memories of childhood, or their children's childhood and then a lullaby as a way of thinking about the presence and absence or the systemic issue of creating vacuums. And then I work with formerly incarcerated fathers very closely to create very intimate stories So the experience here at Tribeca is a 26 minute video installation. The version here is three channel video projection with five channel audio and there are reflective walls so you constantly see yourself within the space and you come to the space seeing yourself, confronting yourself before you even enter the room. So the five movements are very distinct. It starts with the voice of fathers calling on their mom and then it ends with the voice of mothers. And there are these haptic panels that each one is one individual formerly incarcerated father. That's the heart of the piece for me, that you can just sit down and as long as you're holding your touch on these haptic panels, you're able to hear these intimate stories and if you lose your touch you would lose the audio and then you have to touch again and it will go to the next segment but it also sheds light on you so it actually kind of for me it's a performative act it's something between theater and cinema and you know documentary so other peoples are witnessing you witnessing the story so that aspect of it is very important for me too that now the light is on you as you decide to engage with this piece and a lot of people because it's demanding also physically you have to hold your hand and your hand gets tired and A lot of people switch hands, they put their forehead on the panels in order to sort of like hold on to their stories because their stories are also long. They're about 9 to 11 minutes each. But it's been really amazing to sort of witness people because some people could come to the space and totally lose the heart of the project if they don't decide to engage. But it's been very interesting to see when people engage, then a lot of time they're just holding on to that touch to continue to listen to the story. The piece is also participatory. So we use roundware, which is an open platform source, is augmented. audio sound escape so you can record your own voice participating by sharing a memory, sharing lullaby, sharing reflections and then your voice becomes part of this geo-located map that you can hear online but also you can walk the neighborhood with this AR app to listen. So the idea is that this becomes for us a way, a tool that we could launch the project before we are even there and collect voices and lullabies and then these become part of the archive that then i work with local sound designers and composers and artists to put together then new experiences from these collected lullabies that maybe you come to the street or you come to the exhibit and hear your uncle singing or your brother singing so for me that sort of hyper locality of an experience but also expanding it that is cross-border using these digital tools that it allows us the hyper locality but also it breaks the boundaries by allowing you to sort of connect across And then the AR piece is a first experience at Tribeca. I have shown the immersive experience in other places, not in New York, but in Boston Institute of Contemporary Art and in Ars Electronica. But the AR is a new experience in New York. And it's meant to be that arm of the project that travels with the immersive installation. And it connects the piece to the public side, history. And it's the part that allows the participatory aspect of the project and the growth of the project to happen. So it becomes an extension that is accessible to the public, whether you are coming to the institutions or not. And here what it was really interesting as soon as I find out where the Tribeca immersive installation will be, I did a quick research and there is two block away is the historic site of a slave market. And then you can walk the Wall Street and you get to the pier where they were bringing people and the slaves to the shore. So it became very apparent that we need to take that journey and we need to take that work from the WSA that also there was an unearthing of a shipwreck here at this site that we are currently on that also is related to the slave trade and transatlantic. So it became quite apparent that we need to take this walk, take this journey and in this very again like poetic way take a walk to the slave trade and then recall some of those histories and memories and juxtapose them with some of the stories of the fathers who are now incarcerated but also really kind of shifted to the end to this sort of future thinking future looking forward space and there is a beautiful piece that is a collaboration with Jakari Sherman who's a stepping choreographer so looking back at some of that history of a stepping of ring shouts and that relationship to the space of joy and the space of movement as a form of resistance so there are different pieces in this journey when you walk through there is a father's lullaby piece that it used to be a actual physical audio installation And then there is another piece at the slave market site that is called Undrowning. And there is a last piece with a cellist composer and artist that it will sort of end the journey at the pier.
[00:23:58.861] Kent Bye: So yeah, there's a lot of different components of this. And before we start to dive into some of my reactions and impressions from the piece, just as a question, how many hours of oral history content have you gathered to this project over the last decade?
[00:24:13.186] Rashin Fahandej: A lot. A lot. But I feel like also, so that's another aspect of the project to think about how those, because what I showcase, even though I really like to make it super monumentalized, when you come to the space, like the aesthetic and the look of things are refined and are in a way that to monumentalize these things. bodies and these stories but that's 20% of my work 80% of my work is actually within the community with the projects and programs that I create with the community the same way a very small amount of the content that I've been sort of gathering because for me it's also about relationship building and really understanding this space through the stories that I witness and So I feel like I'm carrying all these different histories and memories and I have very intimate connection with all of these elements that I bring to the work and to the people that I bring to the work. So similarly, there is only a small... sort of number of these stories that they get highlighted. And another aspect of the work is how to make this archive actually accessible, how to show this sort of multiplicity of narrative and stories and think about historicizing and telling his story in this collective way, but very different perspective. So it's a lot. So it's hours and hours and many, many hard drives. So I think you can relate to that.
[00:25:47.375] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's part of the reason why I asked, just because I had to re-architect some aspects of my website and ended up having to re-upload all my audio. And I had it all downloaded and I checked how many hours have I published. And it's like around 49 days worth of content that it would take to listen to the stuff that I've published. And there's a whole archive of stuff I haven't published. And so, I mean, I think a podcast actually ends up being a good way to push out audio content. Have you thought about a podcast element to this? Because you do have such a rich archive of audio because you will talk around the ways that you have taken these audio recordings and put them within an immersive and spatial context. But just curious if you've looked at podcasting as another potential delivery mechanism for some of this content you've been gathering.
[00:26:29.358] Rashin Fahandej: yeah it's an intro you know like that's an interesting very interesting point because i feel like some platforms themselves become this form of archiving even social media right but i have not been even though i use emerging media and i use all these sort of different tools and platforms i'm very grounded on the ground so i do a lot of work so i feel like i'm much more connected to the bodies and the physicality of the spaces and people and their relationships that it's been hard to sort of give enough attention to that side of things so that i feel like now with all of those strategies and methodologies or pedagogies that i have created over these years I feel like now I'm ready to think about okay what does it mean to really now think about that aspect of the work and podcast is very interesting because actually one of the fathers who was in the program with the course with the students he started creating a podcast after taking this course he took another course And I've been thinking about it. Like, I feel like if I do that, it would be a very interesting way of thinking about bringing actually the fathers who were an alumni and part of this work to think about how this grow in that sense. So it becomes something that they take ownership of and they take, because there are many fathers that they didn't at all consider themselves artists, but there are also few fathers that, took interest or to kind of grow from that side or they already had that as their toolkit and I do think about it as that strategy I feel like in the next phase is that how I engage more directly and we could actually think about different aspects of this work grow but it's outside of me like I've been really waiting for that that I'm not the only guardian of this work and trying to sort of move it forward like I feel if there is funding I can like really because you can't just pull people in that they are in these spaces without having resources and this work has been the labor of love literally I've been just putting time and resources into it to just make it happen and to just move it forward because I felt there is an urgency. But that's, yes, so definitely I feel that would be interesting. But for me, it would be a co-creation, like thinking about, okay, who are the people that they are doing things and they are interested and they are alumni and related and connected to this work. And we could sort of start expanding this work in a different way and And bringing these voices to life and accessible. But definitely I think co-creation with the actual fathers is the important aspect of it.
[00:29:28.550] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think with your project and similar to what I am facing with similar issues in terms of like having a vast archive, how do I make it more accessible or give people vectors to experience it? I think with your approach has been much more into integrating it with all these other spatial contexts. I've just been putting out 2.7 episodes per week for the last 11 years, which is a lot of content that's out there. And so each episode preserves its full context so that people can listen to it. And it has helped to create this asynchronous approach to capturing these voices and build up a part of a community of people that are thinking about these issues, a community of practice of immersive artists, immersive storytellers, and just people generally in the field broadly. And when I see your piece, there's a number of ways that I am getting access to the heart of the story as you refer to it as. So the main three channel video installation is not really actually giving much context as to the details of the stories, who they are, they're singing these lullabies. And then I'm hearing more of their stories by putting my hand up onto the wall of this haptic panel. which I did find to be a little bit fatiguing. That is, like, you do have to work for it. And I, like, stood up at first. And then there is a bit of a trade-off between, like, you know, it was cool to take a picture of myself doing it and the reflection, but also when I saw other people, I was like, oh, wow, that looks really cool. So it's almost like the people that are listening to the heart of the story become a piece of the art itself. But it's this trade-off between, like, putting your hand on this haptic device is actually more fatiguing than it is, like, getting me more immersed into the story. But there's other parts where like there's iPads outside where I'm able to look at a geolocated version of these stories. And if a lot of them are recorded in the community of Boston, then there's these geolocated bubbles that can like, you know, could almost take a walking tour to start to listen to some of these different stories. And then there's other AR components that you're taking us on here just outside of Tribeca that we're walking two blocks away to the Slave Market Memorial. And then there's a number of different anchors that were there. But as I'm walking, I'm listening to other lullabies and other singing, but also just like sometimes hearing people's stories that start to come in. And as we were walking yesterday, you said that you had created a whole... installation where you have speakers actually playing some of those different audio clips of these oral histories so that people could be within a spatial context and hear some of these so there's a lot of different other parts that you have for each of these different components but if we just focus on the oral history i feel like there's ways that you've either integrated that into the installation context there's like a walking tour ar app that people can search terms or discover different things that are tying little segments together And then there's ways that you've integrated it to the AR app and have these stories come through. And I also found that there was a way of hearing the singing within the context of the AR app that started to hit me in a different way that didn't hit me when I first saw it. Because when I first watched it, I watched the video first, not knowing much. And then Because the theme of the story is around exile, being separated from family. There's an undertone of sorrow and sadness in this because there's kind of like this grieving of disconnection and to go back and to sing the lullabies that either they were sung to or the lullabies that they would have sung to their children. But the context is that they were often separated from their children and they weren't able to necessarily sing them the lullabies. The context of that singing of the lullabies hit me differently when I was on the AR app after I had immersed myself into the project more. And so I feel like the lullabies are kind of another emotional core that doesn't have any story element. It's just the pure emotion of those songs and each of their emotions to it. And yeah, so you've created a variety of other ways for us to access those oral history clips as you're going into these different art installation, AR component. And I'd just love to hear you maybe elaborate on trying to find the combination of how to bring all these different things together and these different contexts in which that people can listen to those oral history excerpts.
[00:33:40.106] Rashin Fahandej: yeah kind of going back to that sort of art as ecosystem is this aspect of like almost like a takeover but not the takeover of like hitting you on the head with like preaching you with anything but actually sort of really allowing for the content and for all those like heartfelt stories that is shared whether from the formerly incarcerated fathers or from mothers or from officers or from artists so this is like the content that you're coming and you're witnessing in the bigger context right like in the poetic side is many different people so actually kind of like a big portion of it i want to come back to this that A big portion of it is like just community contributing to it, right? So you don't know who's incarcerated or who's not. That's also a big portion of this, that is breaking that assumption of like who's the criminal, right? Like with quotation, like what do we consider criminality? And sort of like really putting you at that edge of not knowing exactly and where you have access and you know exactly is where you're intentionally incarcerated. engaging and you're putting your hand and then you get this sort of very intimate like headphone connection and touch connection but in term of like access I think to some of these stories and narratives because it's a much more For me, it's an emotional transformation and like rather an irrational, right? We see all these data and we read all these news, so we have enough access to the information if we want to kind of rationally know what we are doing or what's wrong, right? So for me, it's much more about what's this journey, like what is this transcendent moments that you have no connection to this issue, but you all of a sudden feel connected because you are not forced to go think about somebody else's story. You're actually going inward. and you're forced to think about your memory you're you're not forced you're like sort of invited right because we all have relationship with childhood memories whatever that is right but it is a strong emotion and it's a strong part of our being when we think about our childhood or our children childhood whether we have it or not so there is that space is a very universal relationship It doesn't mean that we are all feeling the same, but we all have very strong emotional relationship to children and to the future, like in a way, right? So I feel in that sense, it's much more about confronting a concept. through going inward while you're being moved or being put on this journey of all these musics and songs and little snippets of stories that makes you think or question or again like go inward rather than telling you something And I think that's a stronger space of like the space of inquiry, the space of questioning, the space of going inward and outward at the same time, like a lot of juxtapositions and dualities between things that it actually I feel I'm hoping and I have seen that I feel like it's a stronger space for people to feel connected while they can be totally disconnected. but also for people who have a space like real visceral relationship to this issue also what i continuously hear is that like i totally relate that's my story that's been my childhood that's how i grew up and yes my grandmother it was the person that it led me kind of stay away and not So I mean, like, that's why I, both in terms of the form of storytelling, because poetry is a story, right? Poem is a story. But it's not something that you can, like, give it a hard box and beginning and end often. Or I'm interested in that form of storytelling. poetry that it gives you so many nuances that every time you come back to it you can translate it in any way like Hafez or Molana like the kind of poetry that they actually like require you to stay with the discomfort of not knowing or knowing enough that you want to know more and So I'm thinking about that aspect of how much do we need to confront or hear those stories to think about and how much I resist almost this colonial notion of owning that story or image of misery or hardship because this work it really puts you in that space of not giving you access while giving you access or putting things in this space of presence and absence continuously and really really it does have a demand right like it's a long piece the more you stay the more you get a sense of the structure and the beginning and end It's physically demanding, as you say, and it's a choice. You could come to it and not experience it, and that's the reality of the work, and that's okay. But if you stay, you're going to the next layer of journey. and using different ways of again like using different medias like for me it's not about doing a lot of thing it's actually like really for me it's a point of access and different portals and and take over right like reclaiming the spaces whether it's mental philosophical or whether physical or whether it's virtual it's less about doing a lot it's about actually creating a lot of portal and creating this sort of reclaiming of the spaces Through these, again, like amplifying, that's another aspect of it too, that for me is a feminist project, right? Like we have, as a society, we have robbed the full humanity of men when we are not allowing the nurturing side of them to be the actual human. full potential, right? So a lot of these fathers talk about toxic masculinity being one of the reasons that they actually got into the system as a young child. Even though it starts with this aspect of absence and criminal justice system and systems of violence, it really is about many, many different things and being very intentional about amplifying the voices of men Singing lullabies and amplifying that nurturing side of manhood that we don't really give voice to in the society or it's not considered. A lot of fathers were not comfortable singing lullabies because there is a perception of what manhood should be and there is a role for women to sort of be that tendering side. We tell our sons, men don't cry, right? Like we still live in a society that we are depriving half of the population from their full humanity, which is that tenderness, right? That sort of loving and caring and shoving it or hushing it to the side. And this project is actually kind of really putting it out in the public side, putting it in the virtual side. And you come in and you hear this man saying, like having all these like tender voices singing this like big man with like images and it puts you in the scale that they are all bigger than life size. They're bigger than you. It's an architectural storytelling, right? So I think it has a lot of different layers and meanings and connotations, even though I come to it from this space. Because I think all of these are different systems and different stories that we tell ourselves that many of them are destructive, right? Including, for example, the gender roles. And I feel like when we think about system and system change, it's not just like about, okay, system. We really need to think about these things.
[00:42:22.030] Kent Bye: elements right like what are allowing the full humanity of all beings and genders to sort of be presence and I think we would have a different word yeah it's I think about your piece and just generally how the role of singing has been a part of communities coming together and I'm just curious how you came across this idea to have the fathers be singing these lullabies because it's titled father's lullaby you're seeing the video of that and it's a consistent theme that you're hearing the singing as you go through each of the different iterations and of this project through the ar to the installation and when you're listening to the interviews there's not singing on that it's just more people telling their stories you get the broader context for this project but i'm just curious at what point did you have this revelation that the father's lullaby and the singing was going to be how you were going to be anchoring so much of this project
[00:43:19.588] Rashin Fahandej: So for me, there is like a very, very personal element in it. So I'm happy to share. But as I mentioned, for me, it was really the question of our role and responsibility as a society to the next generation. So there is an issue. There are problems. How do we resolve them that we give a different word to the future generation and seeing it as our responsibility? and seeing that it doesn't have to be my experience right i really when i came especially to united states i was really resisting this aspect that everybody in order to talk about an issue about like race and blackness or whiteness like you have to have that experience no you can come to a social issue From your perspective of a person in the society that you're contributing to a problem, it's not always on the shoulder of people who carry the challenge or that they bear the challenge. And I do see it as our ethical responsibility to come to it. We are not claiming that space, but we are speaking to it. So I think, as I mentioned, the genesis of the project was me working with youths and inner city youths and really thinking about our responsibility to the next generation and really thinking about there is a challenge, there are people that they are impacted by it. How can we usher the next generation to a world that is more just and is different and also taking it on as a responsibility to for all of us, not just those who carry the burden of experiencing it. And I think that comes from my experience, my life experience growing up as a Bahá'í in Iran, that I do see it, that it's not just the responsibility of those who are discriminated and persecuted to only talk about it. It's all of us need to be addressing these issues. And then the other part of it is the intersectionality of these social justice challenges. We have the tendency in order to make these social justice issues more accessible and understandable to sort of actually simplify and want to isolate the issues from each other. And I think this project for me was so important to think about there is actually the intersectionality. I'm interested in the connection between these different points. This is not just about criminal justice system. This is about food justice, spatial justice, education justice. So all of these are interconnected to create this system. So that was another aspect of it that I felt like it's important to again bring it back to the childhood experiences of fathers or those we consider criminals and really think about how criminality is constructed, how the society is basically constructing criminality. And then the other aspect of it was really thinking about coming to these very complex, challenging issues but really coming at them from this space of, again, like love, care and intimacy. And in a way, embodying the society that I envision, that I want to see, right? That is based on care rather than criminalization, that is based on giving support. So I'll give you a couple of data and then I'll give you a very personal story about why lullabies. So, for example, if you think about where we put our resources, in the United States, there is a ratio of one teacher to about 25 to 30 students, correct? What do you think is the ratio between the guards to prisoners?
[00:47:08.838] Kent Bye: I don't know, one to five, maybe?
[00:47:11.886] Rashin Fahandej: Exactly. So it's one to five. A lot of states like California is one to three. So where are we putting our resources? And then what does it mean? So there are so many of these. And then when I was researching and I was looking at all of these policies, all of these data, I was so shocked. I was so shocked that, for example, when people are released from prison, they have such a hard time finding a job because of their criminal record. They can have food stamps in most of the states. They can have housing support. And then how do we expect them to come back to society and contribute? And we cut all of these programs of education within the schools like 20, 30 years ago. And of course there is 86% recidivism in the United States because we don't have a structure. We don't think about it. Why we don't think about it? Because it's part of the design that these people go back and they are slaves, right? Like in New York, what prisoners get paid is like 10 cents or 20 cents an hour. While, for example, when they call their family, they get charged three to five dollars per minute. So really, and then I was thinking, is it possible? Like I didn't know about that. I was living here already for 10 years and I didn't know these things. Like I was curious. I said, do people know about it? And I started, I was teaching like five different courses in three different schools. So I started testing it actually on my students. Like really specifically bringing it to class through different projects and asking questions. How many people know about this? How many people don't know about this? And in my classes, in a semester that I was, for example, teaching 70 to 80 students, maybe two would raise their hand that they knew about it. And when you ask them how they know, They took a class in the school. So yes, we know there are issues, but the intimacy of knowing exactly what is the design of the system, what are the policies that it actually makes that happen, I think that's a very intimate information that we need to consider in order for us to think about, okay, we need to change something. But that then comes from the perception. But then let me go back to the question that you asked, why fathers and why lullabies. At the time, actually, when I was doing this research, I was a new mom. I had like a year old daughter and I was doing a lot of singing and lullabies for her. And I was really experiencing life new from the point of view of this child that I was raising. And I was thinking of. this child like the person who this child becomes is the kind of input and support on what we give right as a parent like we as human species need so much care and support to just get to the point of like walking eating you know like speaking so and i'm thinking about that Really kind of shifting that what is our responsibility when there are kids that they are growing that they don't have it, right? What's the responsibility when there are kids that their parents, they're single parents and they have to work two jobs and they can't even be present? That's the story of all of these fathers that I talked to. that even that one single parent can be around to be present. And what is the structure and the system that we are putting in place that it makes this? And then I decided to really focus on fathers because of also that disrupting that gender role. And really thinking about, again, intersectionality and thinking about we can't just think about one sliver of change here and one sliver of change there. We really need to address all of these. And there is a way also to address these complexities coming to them from these emotional aspects. relationships and thinking about different form of disruption like gender roles and system roles and our role in participating in these systems and all of that.
[00:51:26.500] Kent Bye: wanted to come back to the community part because there's so much of your process that seems to be both documenting these communities but then the other side is then to give it that poetic imagination and that story elements or these immersive qualities whether it's the installation you've got the ar walks and just curious to hear a little bit more about as you continue to do this project and go into other communities, because I know as we're going through the walk, you said that you were doing oral history interviews with people here in New York, and so really situating it into specific contexts to see how these stories may be different relative to specific geographical regions. But as you continue this ongoing oral history and immersive project, I'm just curious to hear bit more around your vision for how this type of art could be leveraging the community to gather the information but then to put it back into the community and these public art projects or other ways that you're able to then feed it back so that they can experience it and what your vision is for in terms of how that's going to lead to either more community more connection more relationality more awareness for different issues and Yeah, just what you would like to see as this work goes forward and how you continue to expand it out, but what you would see as a metric for success for what type of things you'd want to see in terms of how you are measuring what it is that you want to achieve with this type of community-based art practice.
[00:52:51.553] Rashin Fahandej: Yeah, so it's interesting because we have a notion of scale, like as soon as we talk about a scale. So a scale in this work matters because for me it's about using art as this poetic movement. So even though I have a lot of finished pieces, if it was just about artwork, this work could just travel and be the piece itself. But that defies the purpose of what I'm considering art as ecosystem or what I'm considering as art as a poetic movement. So for me, a scale and growth and this sort of organic form of this ecosystem matters. And that's the part that it really is at the heart of the process of creation, but also the heart of processing the work after experiencing the piece. So for me, the piece is becoming like just a platform to create more conversations and discussions and engagements. So the reason I say a scale matters is that I feel like the more bodies and minds get engaged with this, whether in the making of it or in the experiencing of it and in the thinking of it afterward, it expands these energies and this sort of bring these energies together. So that part of it is really important. So what I envision for the project is that I have a lot of like baseline for the project to as a core and again like as a heart of the project to be able to travel and is site responsive. So this piece that I have here at Tribeca could respond to different architectural space and reshape and represent itself. but then it has all of these extensions that it connects it to the actual local community. So the way I imagine it, that again, like maybe another form of takeover and reclaiming and connecting to many, many, many different cities, whether simultaneously or like one after another, but engage with the local institutions and local constituencies, right? to create programs. Again, like I have a lot of set of different pedagogical models, but also that it could lead into expansion of this project, but then also think about how then the installation itself become the space of thinking and conversation and action. So for example, in United States, I'm connected with this coalition that they call 13 Forward. So they are working on stopping slavery in New York because currently, as I mentioned, there are different policies in place. So one, for example, the 13th Amendment is that slavery is prohibited unless in case of criminality. So we do have that in the law, and that's New York City, right? So those coalitions are working on policy, but it was very interesting conversations that I was having with them that they were saying, they need arts and they need actual emotional connections or emotional transformation in people to bring about the policy. So we are now, like, I'm really excited that actually the last two weekends of June, we will be bringing a lot of public groups to the exhibition to then about think tank together, like how these work and the stories and narrative could actually work. help in those sort of policy change. So what I imagine for this work is almost like a takeover of many, many different cities and public sites and sort of filling their spaces with these sort of lullabies and memories and amplifying these voices. And then using this as a starting point to create conversations and dialogue and engagements about future and future thinking and how we can create a society and policies that is more based on care and forgiving and attending rather than criminalizing and oppressing and isolating and separating.
[00:57:15.478] Kent Bye: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I think it's a real ripe time to think around these dialectics between those two. And yeah, I definitely feel like your piece is able to bring that sense of poetic imagination that allows people to be connected on a human level to then think around the impacts of these different policies that we have at more of a systemic level. So yeah, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what you think the ultimate potential for immersive art and immersive storytelling might be and what it might be able to enable.
[00:57:42.649] Rashin Fahandej: Mm-hmm. A big element of the immersive and emerging technology for me is this sort of a sandbox and playful and imaginatory aspect of it that we are still away from best practices and assumptions that what could be the best potential of it. Like I feel like the way that I use it, I think it really helps us to transcend beyond a space of trauma. feel the feelings but be more imaginative it's an a space that we don't still have like best practices and assumptions that what it can be but it's also there is a intimidation a little bit like this novelty creates a sense of that you have to be a little bit vulnerable when you're in this space and I think that the space of vulnerability is a beautiful power for us to come and create and But another amazing aspect of it is this form of encounter. With a lot of these technologies, I'm mixed with different ways of using emerging media and very kind of like a tactile relationship. old media in a way together like I like the juxtaposition of something that we are very intimate with and understand it and something that's novel and and it has a sort of edge of not knowing and understanding and confusion so I think this sort of side by side aspect of or again like another form of juxtaposition is really interesting But at the heart of it, I think with immersive media is the form of encounter. It's a very intimate and it's very much a space of presence and intimate encounter rather than you watching something or this sort of remote sitting at your comfort of your chair and sort of objectifying an experience. Versus you're within it, you're forced to be part of it and you have a form of encounter that it highlights also that discomfort of intimacy, like the comfort and discomfort of intimacy. So I think those aspects are really powerful aspects of immersive media that it puts you in the position that you have to confront a little bit of a discomfort within that space of intimacy, that it allows for more openness and more connection. I really do think they have the possibility of... connecting us beyond the boundary of our physicality or the boundary of different biases that we have.
[01:00:29.585] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community?
[01:00:35.034] Rashin Fahandej: I think maybe I want to give a shout out to the Tribeca this year because for me it was, you know, we do need all form of creation and exploration and just exploring the technology itself is really kind of beautiful. But I think often we don't get to highlight the works that they are really using technology as a way of critical social justice space or like a little bit more deeper, longer and really moving away from just like novelty and what is like a trend in using emerging media, because that's something that did become the tendency. Like, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? Versus that, how can we go with the next thing deeper to sort of explore and discover more? So I do want to give a shout out to the way that the pieces were curated this year, that it allowed that sort of shift that we move away from like... not move away, but sort of give room, right? Like we don't need to move away from anything. We just need to give more room to all different form of expression and existence and connection rather than a singularity of like novelty or exploration of technology or like aesthetic quality. So that's one thing that I want to highlight and I want to, because we are as media maker, there are many ways to engage and there are many ways to use these tools. So that's maybe one thing. I don't know. I feel like it's hard to finish a conversation thinking about the state of the world that we are and not sort of going back to that, that I really hope yeah maybe going back to sort of this space of urgency we are living at a time and a space that this sort of like a space of disruption and division and differentiation and putting things in binary and creating these states of power exertion and violence is becoming more and more sort of apparent and visceral and visual and the things that we experience through media And really thinking about what is our responsibility at this moment in time, using the tools that we have to really think about the current moment and what kind of future we want to create. And I think there is an urgency to think differently and act differently. There is an urgency.
[01:03:19.682] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Rasheen, it was a real pleasure to get a chance to sit down and hear a bit more about your process and just how your project has got all these different dimensions to it, but also how it is coming back to ways that we can facilitate these community and co-creation processes to both reflect the stories of the communities, but also to engage those communities in new and different ways. Yeah, just really appreciated having a chance to watch the Follower's Lobby and to see the many different permutations and iterations across all these different media and this through line of the heart and the emotion, but also, yeah, just a lot of sorrow and mourning that is there. The grieving, that's the kind of emotional hook that'll stick with me in terms of just listening to those stories, to those singing and yeah, it's, sitting next to the river listening to this beautiful cello piece that we didn't really get a chance to dive into but the other aspects of just like reflecting on the history of the slave trade and yeah there's your project has lots of different moments and and a whole entire archive that i feel like i just dip my toes into and that there's so much more that is going to be continued to explore how to how to shape that. So as I think about my own archive and thinking around other ways to give access to it, then I think your project is providing me with a lot of other personal inspiration for where all of this kind of artistic practice of cultivating and curating archives, which I'm seeing more and more of from other artists. But as I have that as my own practice, I'm thinking about, but yeah, just really appreciated just having the opportunity to sit down and to unpack both your process and your journey into creating the art that you're making. So thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast.
[01:04:55.131] Rashin Fahandej: thank you so much kent your your work and and the way that you sustain this space this has been like really amazing and inspirational and thank you for for giving voice to all of these projects and works and field building in a way that you're doing so thank you for that um thank you yeah you're welcome for sure
[01:05:17.469] Kent Bye: thanks again for listening to this episode of the voices of your podcast and if you enjoy the podcast and please do spread the word tell your friends and consider becoming a member of the patreon this is a this is part of podcast and so i do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage so you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of vr thanks for listening
