DACCHE

About:

Digital Action on Climate Change with Heritage Environments (DACCHE) facilitates the use of local knowledge and equips communities to preserve cultural landscapes, with digital solutions and methods for communication of climate stories, and actionable strategies for land restoration, instilling advocacy in the face of a rapidly changing environment.

For us, this project constituted 2 parts:

• A green screen high fidelity XR experience created in Unreal Engine for Varjo headsets.

• A highly interactable XR museum exhibition using MetaQuest 3, where digitally scanned Sámi artefacts can be interacted with.

"With Grenseland – Gaskelaante at Stiklestad National Cultural Center, Museene Arven challenges expectations of what an exhibition should be and do. The theme is highly relevant: What happens when societal and climate changes threaten the ways of life of the Sámi and everyone else living in Gaskelaante?

Gaskelaante is the borderland between Trøndelag and Jämtland. In the exhibition, I wander through a virtual snow-covered landscape. Here, archaeological finds from the area appear. I grasp them with light “digital” touches. Other objects—stones and twigs—I feel with my hands. A voice guides and shows the way. In the green room, which is also the space outside the goahti (Sámi hut), I meet Emma. At first, I’m unsure whether Emma is real. She is. I am in Emma’s home, yet not quite.

Gaskelaante dissolves time and space. I get to touch, feel, and experience—but when I take off the headset, all I see is a technically equipped Black Box. Gaskelaante is pioneering work in museum communication in Norway. But it’s more than that. Gaskelaante opens doors to future collection management, to closeness with the sources and the knowledge they can offer us.

Congratulations to Hanna and Museene Arven for an unusual and deeply inspiring exhibition. And thanks to Emma, who is not only a communicator at Stiklestad, but will soon be seen in the Valdresspelet."

Ole Aastad Bråten - VP Norwegian Museum Association