SBS and Google bring stories of displacement and hope to life in immersive installation for the 21st Biennale of Sydney
15 March 2018
Media Release
SBS today announced that it has partnered with Google's Creative Lab and the Biennale of Sydney to create Belongings, an interactive installation for the 21st Biennale of Sydney that explores the issue of displacement through a unique lens.
Created by SBS's Digital Creative Labs using technology developed by Google's Creative Lab, Belongings shares stories and experiences of people who left their homeland, and almost everything they own, in search of a new life in Australia.
Belongings brings together diverse personal experiences through a single common thread: treasured possessions, with participants sharing their stories behind objects from the country of their birth that continue to hold meaning. The project marks the first life-scale interactive installation for SBS, which uses technology that allows audiences to use their smart phone devices to control a multi-user, large scale environment.
Marshall Heald, Director of TV & Online, said: SBS is committed to exploring issues facing all Australians through innovative storytelling. Belongings draws on the theme of treasured possessions and memories to encourage greater understanding of the challenges faced by those who come to Australia to be resettled.
For the individuals featured in Belongings, such personal items and memories hold huge significance. Damon Amb from Iran shares the story of his grandmother's purse, while Lizzy Samba from Papua New Guinea recounts the sense of strength she feels from her mother's necklace. Sabina Krusevljanin from Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to hold close a backpack she used while escaping Sarajevo and Parastoo Bahrami from Afghanistan, tells how revisiting her passion of creating beautiful hand-beaded baskets helps her look forward to her future. Due to her time living in different refugee camps, Amou Job lost everything she owned, and shares memories that help her to hold on to her past.
With the aim of connecting with Australia's diverse communities, each story will be available in an additional six languages, including Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Hindi and Punjabi.
Using technology developed by Google's Creative Lab - dubbed XY-Fi' - visitors to the installation connect to a dedicated Wi-Fi network and can use their smartphone as a remote control for the installation; selecting their preferred language and engaging with the first-account stories of each of the project's participants through video and audio.
Tea Uglow, Creative Director of Google's Creative Lab, said: We're interested in how we can use the technology that we've all become so familiar with - like mobile phones - to do something unexpected. When your own phone becomes not only a remote control, but also the way you can access personal, deeply emotive stories in your preferred language, as part of a public installation, we realise the magic of these devices in a completely new way.
Jo-Anne Birnie-Danzker, Director and CEO of the Biennale of Sydney, said: The Biennale of Sydney has, over the past forty-five years, played an indispensable role in Australia's engagement with the world and provided perspectives from elsewhere on issues that matter. The 21st Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, under the artistic leadership of Mami Kataoka, is a compelling exploration of the most urgent issues of our day, among them, the unprecedented displacement and movement of people across the globe.
The 21st Biennale of Sydney runs from 16 March - 11 June 2018 at seven locations across Sydney. For more information visit www.biennaleofsydney.art
ENDS
SBS
As Australia's multicultural broadcaster, SBS holds a unique place in the Australian media landscape, inspiring all Australians to explore, appreciate and celebrate our diverse world and in doing so, contributes to a cohesive society. SBS Digital Creative Labs boldly reimagine the way powerful stories are told, immersing audiences within interactive experiences that drive an emotional connection and encourage a deeper understanding of the world around them.
Google's Creative Lab
Googles Creative Lab is a group of creators, developers and filmmakers around the world who explore and play with Google's tools and the emerging digital technology that surrounds us. They communicate the potential of these digital tools to make the world a better and more enjoyable place, and show marketers and creative agencies what's possible. You could say we're looking at what happens when you take the web away from computers and give it to artists and performers to play with.
Biennale of Sydney
The Biennale of Sydney provides a platform for art and ideas and is internationally recognised for commissioning and presenting innovative, thought-provoking art from Australia and around the world. A leading international art event, the Biennale of Sydney has showcased the work of nearly 1,800 artists from more than 100 countries. It has attracted over 4 million visitors since its inception in 1973 and holds an important place on both the national and international stage. The Biennale of Sydney is located on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land and pay respect to Elders, both past and present.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
SBS and Google bring stories of displacement and hope to life in immersive installation for the 21st Biennale of Sydney
