AncestARs
Digitising Makonde cultural heritage before it disappears.
- Role
- 3D artist · virtual tour and 3D scan cleanup
- When
- October 2023
- Tools
- Blender, Kuula, MagiScan 3D
Description
AncestARs is a cultural heritage preservation project that digitises African cultural practices at risk of disappearing, using extended reality — AR, VR and MR.
By using augmented reality inside social media applications, it lets the Makonde people's facial and body art and their wood carving be experienced in ways that were not possible before. The effects are built from cultural experiences learned through field research in the Mtwara region, and the project's aim is to preserve the intangible heritage of the Makonde using extended reality.
About the Makonde
The Makonde are an ethnic group in south-east Tanzania, northern Mozambique and Kenya.
They are known for wood carving — primarily in blackwood, mpingo — for facial scarification and mouth piercing (ndonya), and for their observance of puberty rites, jando na unyago.
Behind the scene
I worked as part of the OnaStories (opens in a new tab) team, collaborating with the Tanzania National Museum (opens in a new tab) on this project. Our project lead was Tulanana Bohela (opens in a new tab).
I created a virtual tour of a traditional Makonde house, and cleaned and enhanced 3D-scanned sculptures and facial masks of the Makonde in Blender, working from scans provided by MagiScan 3D.