Vice World News and Dentsu Webchutney India are rewriting history for ten artefacts in the British Museum. The project is part of a movement by Vice World news to have the artefacts returned to their homelands.
The project, The Unfiltered History Tour, is an unofficial guide via an interactive mobile site and a 10-episode podcast series featuring experts from the homelands of these objects. People can scan the objects to unlock an augmented reality that shows the moment these items were taken and find out more about them in a series of podcast episodes featuring interviews with experts from these countries, which explains the cultural significance of the 10 items from the perspective of those who were denied a deeper relationship to them thanks to their removal, rather than from the British Museum’s perspective.
The tour features a comprehensive history of the looting and controversial acquisitions of Australia’s Gweagal Shield, India’s Amaravati Marbles, Iraq’s Ashurbanipal reliefs, Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes, Ghana’s Akan Drum, Egypt’s Rosetta Stone, Greece’s Parthenon Marbles, Rapa Nui’s Hoa Hakananai’a, Jamaica’s Birdman and Boinayel figures, and China’s Summer Palace. The tour’s experts include Aboriginal rights activist, Rodney Kelly, a descendent of the original owner of the Gweagal Shield; Nigerian artist, Victor Ehikhamenor, who represented Nigeria in its first ever Venice Biennale show in 2017; and Rapa Nui governor, Tarita Rapu.
The podcast series is accessible through the mobile site TheUnfilteredHistoryTour.com and all major podcast platforms. The project builds on the success of the VICE World News video series Empires of Dirt, which uncovered stories of colonialism often not taught in schools, and to date has been viewed 19 million times across YouTube and Facebook. It is available globally, promoted in social across VICE Media Group’s network, including VICE World News’ 1million+ Instagram account.
John Montoya, senior director, audience & content strategy at VICE Media Group, stated, “The Unfiltered History Tour is an important teaching tool for our audience: we want to continue to educate them on the historic and modern inequalities that have been woven into our everyday lives, using technology and social media to unlock a fuller experience. There is still so much to unpack about colonialism in Britain today: we hope that this project can play a part in furthering this.”
