Fisherchild
A community-based new media project which translates the oral storytelling archive of a small South African fishing community into an interactive digital repository of indigenous marine knowledge. Building on the ancestral and archival work of sixth-generation fisher child Traci Kwaai, this project archives and retells the stories of the centuries-old Kalk Bay indigenous fishing community whose livelihoods are threated due to lack of access to marine resources.
Co-created by Lo-Def Film Factory and creative technologist Kyle Marais, this project combines new media storytelling technologies with traditional knowledge to digitally preserve the cultural heritage and identity of this community. This work culminates in the creation of a game-engine built experience which houses the 3D documentation of important artefacts, sites and oral histories, as well as a site-specific audio walking tour. In a workshop series, youth from Kalk Bay created hand-made media that contributed to the VR experience, working directly with the artists and technologists in a shared creative process.
This project won an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica’s S+T+ARTs Prize Africa 2025.
Read more at the Fisher Child Projekt website here.
Created by Traci Kwaai, Lo-Def Film Factory and Kyle Marais in collaboration with Fisher Child youth.
This project was supported by the Heritage Management Organization and the Mellon Foundation.