Virtual Reality
Accompany Maine resident, Shuab Mahat, on a virtual reality journey to Dadaab Refugee Camp in eastern Kenya. Returning to the camp for the first time since being resettled to the United States 15 years ago, Shuab is there to reconnect with his mother, siblings and grandmother. He is trying to understand why his family, along with a quarter of a million other refugees, are stuck in the desert with scarcely any possibility of getting out.
Returning To Dadaab is a film by Shuab Mahat and Daniel Quintanilla.
| AT THE PERIPHERY | was featured at the exhibition Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways. This virtual reality experience explores the often paradoxical idea of "visibility" as it relates to the immigrant experience. In this virtual journey, one is transported to spaces occupied temporarily or permanently by immigrant communities in Maine: a seasonal blueberry camp, a community farm organized by refugees, a takeout restaurant. Upon putting on a headset and looking around, the viewer notices that there are no humans pictured in these spaces. | AT THE PERIPHERY | of the headset, "human suggestions" briefly appear, but when the viewer turns to focus on them, they vanish. Through the use of ambisonic 360 audio, a soundscape fills in the gaps of a human presence in each location.
Inspired by the life experiences of Raul, father of filmmaker Daniel Quintanilla, while a resident in the United States for over a decade.
A Shared Space: Lewiston is the story of Hilowle and Shuab who grew up in Dadaab, Kenya– the largest refugee camp in the world. Today, both have started families and call Lewiston, Maine home. Raising children in one of the United State’s least diverse states in the wake of the Muslim Ban and rising nationalist sentiments has created challenges neither expected.