At the beginning of March we received an exciting email from Heroes & Friends of Impact HUB Amsterdam, which announced that SAMA's story has been selected for their new project: Heroes of Amsterdam (Helden van Amsterdam).
Michiel de Koning is one of the founders of Heroes & Friends and in an inspirational visionary behind this prize winning idea. He is supported by Lennart Sikkema, Virtual Reality Research Intern, from the Breda University of Applied Science.
In the course of 3 workshops, we - the 17 heroes and total newbies to practical VR - shall learn how to plan, write and script, film and later produce - edit and stitch - a Virtual Reality (360) Impact Film about our corresponding projects.
The reason that our Street Art Museum has chosen Virtual Reality and immersive technologies to document and preserve the street art collection is because the usual photography or filming does not truly show the magnitude and impact of the large mural, such as Glory for example. The 'old media' seems static in comparison to the maturing 360 video and easy accessibility to the tools.
The same idea struck Michiel on his trip to Kenya, when he wanted to make an impactful documentation of the environment and the story within it.
Street Art in SAMA collection is not related to plain canvas, here this alternative art form truly lives and plays, inspires and intrigues. From small characters running along streets and hiding around the corners, detailed portraits by Btoy on utilities boxes, passage with a mirror image of abstracted tulips, to the large murals - the art is waking up the imagination of the viewer. Therefore, the surrounding environment, the light, the season - blooming tree over the Last Kiss, green garland wrapping the face of Smile, red berries carpeting under the feet of the Fatherhood - are as important as an image itself.
We hope that our film will not only explain the magnitude of SAMA collection but also opens the doors to the new visitors to Amsterdam Nieuw-West because of it, thus creating new things to do in Amsterdam, outside of the city centre and the usual red lights.
The films will be presented during We Make the City Festival on the 20th of June 2019 in the Impact HUB.