Unfiltered History Tour
VICE World News
Issue 62 | March 2022
Agency
Dentsu Webchutney
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer PG Aditiya Executive Creative Director Ashwin Palkar Creative Director Aabhaas Shreshtha, Amey Chodankar, Binaifer Dulani Associate Creative Director Geetika Sood Senior Group Head, Copy Stuti Sudha Group Head Art Tanya Paul Group Head, Copy Kushal Lalvani Senior Copywriter Meghna Yesudas Art Director Karthik Nambiar Associate Art Directors Manasi Sheth, Vaishakh Kolaprath
Production Team
Associate Group Head, Video and Mixed reality Gerson Pearson Senior Group Head, Motion Graphics Manish Joseph Senior Lead Developer Rahul Sharma Senior Director, Production Rakesh Bairwa Sr. Visualizer Shreya Vivek Arora Sr. Video Editor and Animator Vignesh Praveen Research Consultant Art Historian and Cultural Researcher Shaleen Wadhwani Filter Developer Pixel Party Kalpit Dwivedi
Other Credits
CEO Gautam Reghunath Chief Innovation officer Gurbaksh Singh VP, Strategy Ishtaarth Dalmia Group Account Director Karishma Changroth Senior VP Priyanka Borah Podcast Production Produced by Jesse Lawson With research from Marthe Van Der Wolf Client Team VICE Senior Director, Audience and Content Strategy John Montoya VICE UK Executive Editor Zing Tsjeng
Date
December 2021
Background
Some say the British Museum is the world’s largest receiver of stolen goods. Given there are over 8 million objects in its collection, that’s potentially a large amount of looted pieces. But what is problematic is that the story of its looted artefacts is told only from the perspective of European colonialism.
It’s the British story of non-British artefacts and it makes no room for minority and colonial representation.
Idea
VICE World News launched a new guided tour for visitors at the British Museum in London. But the museum itself had no idea. Visitors could scan 10 disputed artefacts at the museum with their phones using Instagram filters, unlocking an AR experience that returned these objects back to their homeland. Objects included the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes. The immersive audio experience was narrated by experts from the countries where the items were taken.
The campaign was extended by a 10-episode podcast series, each dedicated to one of the 10 disputed artefacts.
Results
Over 50 million social impressions. Over 100 million PR impressions and counting.
Our Thoughts
Ouch. It’s like discovering your mother was a hooker before she met your dad.
There certainly is “much to unpack about colonialism in Britain today”, as the press release about this idea from VICE puts it.
The legacies of the slave trade are very much with us and anger towards the Imperial and colonial adventures of our forbears has led to statues being toppled and a re-evaluation of many of our institutions. While we’re not responsible for what our forbears did, we are able to right wrongs. To what extent reparation let alone restoration should go is going to be more hotly debated than ever.