Sympathetic Regrowth

During the early 19th century hundreds of orphans lived and died in the un-free colony of Veenhuizen. They lived in terrible conditions which resulted in a high mortality rate and once they died, they did not receive proper burials. These orphans were not afforded their due respect and commemoration in their lives and deaths, and to this day have been largely overlooked, existing only as entries within ledgers.

While many Dutch people are related to the people who were sent to the colonies, these orphans often died young without anyone to remember them. This project aims to memorialise them and make their story accessible through the digital.

We are thus using the digital as a space for commemoration, while trying to reconcile the concept of digital empathy. It is an exploration into the complex relationship between the digital realm and the emotional realm, where we understand empathy as an emotion that allows you to reach beyond yourself and into the feelings of others.

Empathy within the digital space is inherently always designed. Within this experience, we have chosen a combination of free user-agency and controlled interactions, that allows the visitor to engage fully with the created environment. Can the digital, as a medium, move beyond the sterility of the binary, and leave space for the blurriness of emotionality?