CAPHE researchers gathered in Kenya in February to launch their collective exploration of how advanced technologies like virtual and augmented reality are enabling new forms of creative expression and changing the way we receive culture produced in these environments. Their month-long mobility featured gatherings, performances, tours, travel and a symposium aimed at locating the project’s research output for participating scholars and institutional partners.
Kenyatta University played host to academics and practitioners drawn from a range of disciplines and professional endeavours. Together, more that 30 researchers from Europe travelled to Nairobi to chart the CAPHE research course over the coming four years.
Led by philosophers from Poland’s Jagiellonian University, the CAPHE team comprises educators, IT professionals, aesthetes, architects, musicians and museologists, all of whom will contribute to the projects research output. This includes a two-volume compendium of papers based on field research, experimental inquiries and projects commissioned under the CAPHE programme.
Participants used their time in Kenya to get to know one another and familiarise themselves with the areas of expertise and interest of their project partners. Grouped under broad headings of Art, Education and Community, teams from participating institutions, enterprises and associations made presentations before the group.
With technology broadening forms of creative expression, CAPHE research will guide and navigate these transformative platforms, the art-making and educational practices that deepen user experiences. As such, the exchange paved the way for the research relationships that will grow and develop over the life of the CAPHE project.
Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 101086391, CAPHE will produce a series of conferences at which academics and researchers will detail and popularize their findings in the areas of Art, Community and Education. The first of these is scheduled for Athens, Greece, in September 2023.