StoryTrails, a unique immersive storytelling experience, is coming to Lambeth and Lewisham as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, a ground-breaking UK-wide celebration of creativity in 2022. StoryTrails will bring untold stories from the past to life through the magic of the 3D internet using augmented and virtual reality to reanimate public spaces in towns and cities across the UK creating a free, entertaining and playful family-friendly experience. It will visit just 15 locations across the UK, including Lambeth and Lewisham in London in September 2022. Audiences will time-travel via the wonder of these new technologies to experience untold local histories in Lambeth and Lewisham where they happened and StoryTrails needs the best and brightest creative talent from the local area to tell the stories of this community.

StoryTrails is currently recruiting a cohort of new creative talent to run this amazing project in Lambeth and Lewisham. Creative professionals interested in working with new technology such as 3D modelling software, games engines, augmented and virtual reality are encouraged to apply now to tell the stories of their local community. Applicants will receive funding to join a team of high profile creative partners and to work closely with local people to gather unknown and intriguing stories and showcase them in new, surprising and magical ways using immersive technologies. Full training in immersive technology will be provided alongside access to state of the art equipment, production support and production credits for the work.

StoryTrails is run by StoryFutures Academy, the UK’s National Centre for Immersive Storytelling. The centre is at the forefront of training and up-skilling creative media professionals in the use of the next generation of storytelling tools. It is run by Royal Holloway, University of London and the National Film and Television School (NFTS). StoryFutures Academy wants to ensure that the UK’s creative industries are not only the best trained in the use of these game-changing technologies but that the future workforce properly represents the diversity of the UK.

Once the StoryTrails creatives have sourced and developed the stories together with the local community, audiences will be guided through an immersive tour of the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Lewisham as they explore these stories across virtual and augmented reality and via a series of installations in London in September 2022.

Outside the local library, participants will enter the virtual story portal to begin the StoryTrails experience guided by a free mobile AR app. Using a mix of stunning AR experiences that remix the BFI and BBC archive, local people will experience history where it actually happened, revitalising the streets upon which they stand with new voices and untold stories of the past. Inside the library, participants will be immersed in a virtual map of their town that will be made up of 3D models, and audio stories captured on location and they will have the opportunity to explore further stories via bespoke virtual reality experiences.

Professor James Bennett, Director of StoryFutures and StoryTrails, said: “StoryTrails is a massively ambitious project as we travel across the UK to discover unknown, surprising and intriguing stories from local communities. We’re excited to work with local creative talent to uncover and bring these hidden histories to life, creating a new sense of belonging and immerse audiences in an amazing new way to see themselves, their communities, their towns and country.”

StoryTrails is led by StoryFutures and delivered in partnership with the British Film Institute (BFI), broadcaster and film-maker, David Olusoga, the BBC, Uplands Television, and leading immersive specialists ISO Design and Nexus Studios. It will use cutting edge technology from Niantic, makers of Pokemon Go and be brought to life in The Reading Agency’s national network of libraries and by event- making specialists ProduceUK.

Professor David Olusoga, Executive Producer for StoryTrails, said: “I am thrilled to be working with StoryFutures to help bring about change in the diversity of our creative industries. By enabling 50 diverse creative voices to create compelling stories that combine past, present and future through the magic of immersive technologies, we’ll be mapping a new path for creativity in this country. StoryTrails will set the public’s imagination alight with experiences that use the poetry of history to inspire a new vision of our future.”

StoryTrails will culminate with a specially commissioned film by David Olusoga’s Uplands Television which will screen in BFI cinemas nationally and be made available to audiences across BBC iPlayer. Across this multiplatform project, film, immersive technologies and real-world locations will bring history to life and inspire a conversation around who we are, where we belong and where we are going.

StoryTrails will create an innovative approach to storytelling that appeals to a range of audiences in Britain and globally, creating one of the world’s largest immersive storytelling projects. It will change the way we can tell stories about ourselves, putting the promise of the 3D internet into the hands of people where they live and make the virtual and the augmented a magical reality for audiences everywhere.