Case Studies
Kigali Genocide Memorial
In 2001 Stephen and James Smith visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial at a time when there was no building on the site and human remains still to be exhumed. In 2004, they were responsible for the opening of the national genocide centre in Rwanda, and have worked with the community of survivors and educators ever since.
Kigali Genocide Memorial is visited by 100,000’s a year from a round the globle.
Stephen Smith designed and developed the children’s memorial based on this picture of the Umutoni sisters murdered during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis.
Clothes that were exhumed along with human remains at the Kigali Memorial Centre prior to its opening in 2004.
Memorial stained glass window in the Kigali Genocide Memorial created by Israeli artist Ardyn Halter.
Photos were brought to the memorial by family members. This participatory exhibit was conceived by Stephen Smith to allow members of the public to bring their own memories into the core exhibit.
A member of the CAR peace building delegation to the Kigali Genocide Memorial is interviewed for USC Shoah Foundation by Stephen Smtih .
Guatemala
In Guatemala Stephen partnered with Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) to add personal testimony to their impressive program of forensic investigations into the disappearance and mass murder of mainly Mayan victims of the Efraín Ríos Montt government of 1982/3. The organization pairs its scientific work with testimony, family support and education programs.
Interviewing survivors by sites of mass execution.
FAFG forensics labs carry out detailed scientific research into missing persons from the era of the 1984 genocide.
DNA Specialists at FAFG match results of samples taken from human remains with living relatives. Testimony is the third aspect of retrieving the past.
FAFG Director Fredy Pecerelli beside the professionally excavated mass grave from the Efraín Ríos Montt period in Guatemala.
A family receives remains more than 35 years after their relative ‘disappeared’ in the 1980’s.
School children learn together about the genocide in Guatemala, using testimony based resources.
Israel
The devastating attack of 7 October 2023 on Israeli Kibbutzim and Nova music festival goers, left a deep impression on Israeli society and the wider world. Memory Workers partnered with Israel Is, collecting 360 VR testimony on location. The project results in a film 06:28 and a program, Be The Witness, to document and educate about what happened.
Inside a kitchen in Kibbutz Be’eri 2024.
Filming subjects on location in 360 VR
Immersive testimony brings the subject and audience closer.
Millet Ben Haim is interviewed at the site of the Nova Music Festival, Re’im, Israel as part of an immersive media collection.
China
The Memory Workers team have extensive experience working in China, in particular, with the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Programs they worked on included audio-visual testimonies of the last 100 survivors of the 1938 massacre, the first Mandarin language interactive biography of Xia Shuqin, and two short documentaries, The Girl in the Picture, and Two Sides of Survival.
Entrance to the Memorial Hall, Nanjing.
A Scene from Two Sides of Survival
Award Winning short documentary, The Girl and the Picture, directed by Vanessa Roth, Executive produced by Stephen D. Smith
Two Sides of Survival, directed by Amanda Pope, Executive produced by Stephen D. Smith
Visitors to the memorial hall ask questions of Xia Shuqin’s interactive biography.
Interactive biography of Xia Shuqin in the Nanjing Memorial Museum
Tell Me Inge…
VR Project in conjunction with Meta. Holocaust survivor, Inge Auerbacher, tells her story answering over fifty questions about her life, beautifully illustrated by VR artist Daniel Finke. Designed for younger viewers, Tell Me Inge… takes learners into the tragic, yet hopeful life of Inge Auerbacher who was incarcerated in Terzin for three years as a child. Conceived and produced by Stephen D. Smith, and developed in partnership with Meta and StoryFile, Tell Me Inge… is the first conversational video AI learning experience in the metaverse.