What is the IMMERSION Lab?

​The IMMERSION Lab is an annual artist residency that takes place on the Jengo's Playhouse campus and is run through a partnership between The School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus Film Foundation. The residency is a combination of a virtual reality creation lab and an invitation for artists to engage the racial history of America within the context of a southern city: Wilmington, North Carolina, where the residency takes place. Bringing multiple meanings of immersion together, this residency is an opportunity to put critical thinking into practice through immersive media projects.

Since 2017, five iterations of IMMERSION have taken place and 53 artists gave gone through the program, gathering in the heat of the Wilmington summer to explore how to deepen their connection to history, place, and each other through 360 video pieces. Wilmington in Virtual Reality: an IMMERSION Residency Retrospective showcases 16 works made by residents since 2017. In this period, VR technology has evolved immensely, and you will see this reflected in the pieces over time. All pieces are made in Wilmington, inspired by the eccentricities and hauntings of this beautiful place. Read more about each piece and artist below.


THE WORK & THE ARTISTS

IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY FIRST NAME

A Slow IllumiNATION, 2022

Directed by Akeema-Zane
​A Slow IllumiNATION takes its direction from the artists’ collaborative piece with Rena Anakwe in their 2022 Savannah College of Art and Designs’ commission entitled “Our Mourning Due” (2022). “In centering the historical contexts of the text “God’s Trombones” and the collaborative spirits of James Weldon Johnson and Aaron Douglas, Akeema-Zane and Rena Anakwe have immersed themselves in the Southern landscapes of Savannah, Georgia and Wilmington, North Carolina to invoke the text “Go Down, Death.” What emerges is a survey of the synergy between land and its cycles of death, as well as the rest that is needed for regeneration.”

This iterative piece in VR features a recitation of an excerpt from the writings of Amiri Baraka (The System of Dante’s Hell) which was also featured in the collaborative live performance of “Our Mourning Due” entitled “Sermons.” Additionally this piece culminates in work recorded in VR at the Immersion 2.0 session in 2018.

Credits
Akeema-Zane, sound design, vox, performance, edit
Amy Bergstein, vr camera lead/co-direction (2018)
Maria Theresa Barbist, vr camera assistance (2022)

Special Thanks to:
The School of Making Thinking, Sophie Traub
Immersion 4.0 artists residents
Dan Brawley, Rachel and CB of Cucalorus, Wilmington, NC
Stefani Byrd of University of North Carolina Wilmington Film Studies Department

Akeema-Zane, she/her
IMMERSION 2.0 Resident, 2018 and IMMERSION 4.0+5.0 Facilitator, 2022-2023

Akeema-Zane is an artist and researcher working in literature, film, performance and sound. Akeema-Zane was born and raised in New York.

She has published short stories “When Money Can’t Buy You Home” (2015) and “There’s a Monopoly on Change” (2015)  as well as poems “Basil Grows on Mother Earth” (2018)  and “Nonsecular Non Sequitur.” Some of her sound design has been featured in Nan Collymore’s short film “LANA” (2023), Kearra Gopee’s “Ca(r)milla” (2023) commissioned by The Kitchen: On Air;   Nile Harris’ “Testify (The Worst Is Yet To Come” (2023); commissioned by Under The Radar and Ping Chong and Company,  Shea Moisture’s Pride campaign (2021);  Joselia Rebekah Hughes’ “Masque On” (2021) commissioned by ArtsNova; Mia Wright-Ross’ “A Moment To Breathe (2021); commission by MAD MUSEUM;  Naima Ramos-Chapman’s “In Place of Monuments” (2021);  Art 21’s short doc “Doreen Garner on Her Own Terms” (2021) and in the immersive installation debut of “Void Spa” (2023) with collaborator A. Sef at Recess Art. ​
With collaborator Rena Anakwe, the artist has developed works that combine her literary, film, performance and sound practices through “Our Mourning Due: A Funeral Sermon” (2022); commissioned by SCAD Museum of Art’s Evans Center  for African American Studies and “Sonic Escape Routes: Shall We Fly? Or, Shall We Resist?” (2020); commissioned by Weeksville Heritage Center. Her featured role in the short film “When Rain Clouds Gather” by Christian Nyampeta will debut in this year’s Venice Biennale. She is currently a film educator at Maysles Documentary Center and serves as board chair of The School of Making Thinking as well as on the board of directors of Cucalorus Film Festival.

In 2018, Akeema-Zane began her relationship with Good Light Productions, featuring in “Precious Metals” portraying the character Joy. She made her directorial stage debut in this solo performance by Carolyn Harrison in May 2024.

joy, endurance, water & memory, 2023

Directed by brandon king
joy, endurance, water & memory.. (2023) is a VR short exploring resilience and joy under seemingly omnipresent conditions mired in despair. Through ritual, reverence, play, and sharing space with community, our human and non-human relatives, within and as a part of the earth’s ecology, king examines how these practices act as healing modalities to sustain one’s spirit amidst the ever-present destructive rationale of the world we live in and systems we live under. The impact of this rationale is still very present and alive in Wilmington and these genocidal cultural logics shape how people relate to one another. king’s first immersion into this realm, has been distilled into his first VR short. Record Warped on.tha Daily (2022) shares and exposes history about the Daily Record, a Black owned newspaper publication run by Alexander Manly, was ransacked and burned to the ground during the massacre or Coup of 1898. With a high probability and fear of being lynched, Manly managed to escape town with his life.

Here, in king’s second VR film,  joy, endurance, water & memory.. (2023), lies an offering, examining an existence under dominant, destructive forces, tapping into life-affirming, non-genocidal intergenerational cultural practices and logic rooted in right relations with nature; some practices channeled through memory, while others iterated or created, which help to sustain and may be necessary to endure, survive, transform and thrive.

Cast: brandon king  Akeema-Zane  Courtney Symone  Carrie Hawks  Ivy Nicole-Jone  & Sonia
Sound Design: subt.le   — Mbira & kora sounds from Kevin Nathaniel & Salieu Suso with interview clips from Assata Shakur & Toni Morrison 
Closed Caption (cc) & Credits: Derek Schultz 
Support From: The School of Making Thinking, Cucalorus Film Foundation, and UNCW Film Studies Department

brandon king, he/him
IMMERSION 4.0 Resident, 2022
and 5.0 Facilitator, 2023 

brandon king is a dj/sound-selector, multidisciplinary artist, from the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hampton Roads VA, who creates installations exploring African Diasporic identities, honoring his ancestors’ stories through archival and found materials, sound collages, painting, film, and other forms. brandon is a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, a cooperative network in Jackson Mississippi and currently serves as Executive of Resonate Coop, an international music streaming platform cooperative that is open source. his work has been exhibited at the Virginia Contemporary Art Museum, the Brecht Forum, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, the Imari Obadele Community Production Center, and Kuwasi Balagoon Center for Economic Democracy and Sustainable Development, as well as at the Cucalorus Film Festival.  he is is also a member of the NYC based artist collective PTP (Purple Tape Pedigree) and is currently an MFA candidate at Queens College focusing on Social Practice and Installation.

Wilmington Escaped, 2023

Directed by Carrie Hawks
‘Wilmington Escaped’ takes you on a ghost tour culled from real accounts of enslaved people traveling to other worlds around the time of the racist insurrection of 1898. These short vignettes include a woman with a sharp oyster knife, a man who kept his literacy underwraps, a child in the cemetery, and venus flytraps seeking revenge.  (2023, 6 min)

Collaborators: Akeema-Zane, Jaimes Mayhew, Kiley Brandt, Courtney Symone Staton, Ivy Nicole-Jonet

Screened at the Museum of the Moving Image (Queens, NYC)  during the Marvels of Media Exhibit in 2024.

Carrie Hawks
​IMMERSION 5.0 Resident, 2023
they/them

Carrie Hawks confronts self-imposed and external assumptions about identity in order to promote healing, particularly in relation to Blackness, gender, and queer sexuality. They work in animation, drawing, collage, sculpture, and performance, often incorporating humor. Their film black enuf* was nominated for a New York Emmy, screened at over 40 festivals, and made its broadcast debut on World Channel. They were selected for fellowships with the Jerome Hill Foundation, the Leslie Lohman Museum, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. They have curated programs for the Ann Arbor Film Festival and ASIFA-East and are an Assistant Professor at Parsons, The New School.

A nature doc (360), 2024

Directed by clay scofield
A nature doc (360) is part of a larger project A nature documentary: elements of decomposition. This multimedia project plays with transformations through redefinition of language: elements of composition are reinvented through slippage and sculptural activation as methods of meaning-making through accumulation and decay. Transforming trash into sculptural objects, they capture these objects in video that skews context, perspective, and scale so that the viewer questions where and what they are seeing, highlighting the ever-shifting in-betweenness of the objects-as-landscapes. In these landscapes, we can linger in the in-betweenness, in which everything-becomes-everything.

clay scofield, they/them
IMMERSION 3.0 Resident, 2019
​IMMERSION Facilitator since 2021

Intermedia artist and poet, e clayton scofield (they/them) creates multimedia work that threads together poetic narrative, performance and moving image. Emphasizing the repurposing of material across projects, clay develops an intimacy with objects as they accumulate meaning over time. Slippage and illegibility function in their work to allow forms their own becoming. A word repeated across contexts can become malleable material accumulating various meanings. Trash accumulated over time can be repurposed into a sculptural landscape that is transformed through the camera lens.  Their current work, A Nature Documentary: Elements of Decomposition plays with transformations through redefinition of language: elements of composition are reinvented through slippage and sculptural activation as methods of meaning-making through accumulation and decay. Transforming trash into sculptural objects, they capture these objects in video that skews context, perspective, and scale so that the viewer questions where and what they are seeing, highlighting the ever-shifting in-betweenness of the objects-as-landscapes. In these landscapes, we can linger in the in-betweenness, in which everything-becomes-everything. Inspired by Jill Johnston’s definition of intermedia, articulated as, “Re-integration. The everything as everything. The organism as totally illegal. The legality of nothing but pleasure,” clay’s DIY queer aesthetic gets intimate with everyday materials. 

No Stars, 2019

Directed by Emma Crane Jaster
​Edited by Matt Pearson
Mixed media music video for Matt Pearson’s 2019 electro-soul record “No stars” from the EP The Spider Show (Loops & Variations). Shot on locations in Sweden.

Combining the use of physical props as camera mounts with post production stitching of multiple performances into a single 360 landscape, “No stars” follows a lost man as he re-orients to his constellation of divine angels and makes his pledge to them. 

Directed by Emma Crane Jaster
Edited by Matt Pearson
Music by Matt Pearson and Doug Fisher
Special thanks to Swedish family Stephanie and A.Z. Kelsey-Hayes and the extended family.

Emma Crane Jaster & Matt Pearson
Inaugural IMMERSION Residents, 2017 & IMMERSION 3.0 Facilitators, 2019

Emma and Matt are the gypsy caravan sometimes known as Artificial Wild and the creative duo behind such happenings as Having It All at Georgetown University’s De la Cruz Gallery (2024),  A Play out of Play: 報名表單  all-ages/no-language workshop at UTheater Taipei (2023), Chairbots at Cornell Tech robotics research lab (2018), Keeper of My Heart’s Odd Secrets at ZSpace, San Francisco (2014), To Know A Veil at Hillyer Arts, CHAW, Cap Fringe, Washington DC (2012-2014). Together their practice of life and art uses performance techniques to ask what we humans have in common as we cope with and understand life’s essential changes.

Emma Jaster is an internationally-trained movement artist who has dedicated her life to the study and practice of physical expression.  She works as a director, choreographer, teacher, consultant, activist and mother to connect people with each other so that we may rise up together.

Matt Pearson is a designer and musician with a background in multimedia exhibition design and music performance. As a designer, he plans and designs cultural exhibitions and memorials, places for “learning in public”. As a musician, he plays live as a jazz pianist in the DC area and publishes recordings under a variety of names, including brother hershel bandcamp soundcloud

Journey to Anywhere, 2018

Directed by Fenton
Three strangers board a whimsical truck helmed by a scout-turned-bus-driver with their sights set on Utopia, Clarity and Home. When expectations clash with reality, they get what they need, but not what they came for. Journey to Anywhere was brought to life by the cast who improvised the material within the road map loosely laid out by director, Sara Fenton. “I’m not normally in the pieces I direct,” explains Fenton, “but in VR there’s no behind the scenes for the director to hide, so I figured I’d jump in with them.”

Made in residency at The School of Making Thinking in partnership with Cucalorus Film Festival with technical support and sponsorship from ARVR Consultants.
Director: Sara Fenton
Cast: Sara Fenton, Remi Harris, Liz Naiden, Inka Rusi, Sophie Traub
Additional Crew: Julia Thompson
Special thanks: Naima Ramos-Chapman, Sophie Traub, Dan Brawley, Rachel Taylor, Dominic Cincotti, Chris Nienow, Becca Ederer

Sara Fenton
IMMERSION 2.0 Resident, 2018 & IMMERSION Facilitator since 2019

Sara Fenton got her start as a production coordinator on Canadian Geographic Presents, helping a team of intrepid documentarians track wolves, bears, and diamonds in the Arctic.  Now LA-based, Fenton has produced and directed short-form fiction, nonfiction, and 360-degree Cinematic VR experiences. 

“Journey to Anywhere”, Her recent 360 Cinematic VR film received a nod from the Inter Collegiate XR Festival hosted at her alma-mater USC School of Cinematic Arts.  

An Immersion 2.0 resident artist at The School of Making Thinking and facilitator of their IMMERSION 3.0, Sara co-curated the Immersive VR Salon for the 25th annual Cucalorus Film Festival. Fenton co-taught 360 Narrative Filmmaking at CalArts with fellow Immersion alum gloria galvez. 
As the former director of communications for USC’s Media Institute for Social Change, Sara champions socially-minded filmmakers, changing the world, one film at a time. Fenton  has worked on the award winning documentaries al imam, Raising Citizens of the World, Making a Murderer and Downfall: The Case against Boeing and is proud to be bringing to the screen upcoming stories about women in STEM, female violent offenders, and a deep dive into gender disparity in Hollywood.

Fenton’s films have screened at Sundance, Slamdance, Cannes,  Hot Docs, Cucalorus, Palm Springs and National Geographic. 

​When not making movies, she can be found rolling around as her alter ego: #416 Margaret Splatwood - a member of the LA Derby Dolls Fresh Meat Banked track RollerDerby Team.

Caught Inside, 2017

Directed by Fereshteh Toosi and Betsy Holt
Caught Inside features audio from a conversation with a real surf instructor based on the North Carolina coast. Co-directed by Fereshteh Toosi and Betsy Holt, the interview featured in the film is remixed to suggest a harried dream state. Viewers find themselves traveling with a bed and are invited to consider sleep’s cousin, death.

Fereshteh Toosi
​Inaugural IMMERSION Resident, 2017

​Fereshteh is pronounced FEH-RESH-TEH with short eh sounds like in tennis and fennel. Hear it here.

Fereshteh Toosi is an artist, educator, and learner whose work involves encounter, exchange, play, and sensory inquiry. Their artwork often involves documentary processes, oral history, and archival research. Immersive performances are produced in conjunction with small sculptures, short films, installations, scores, and poetry, often situated in gardens, parks, and waterways.

In 2022, Fereshteh developed an augmented-reality audio experience for the Independence Seaport Museum with support from the University of Pennsylvania’s Program in Environmental Humanities. In 2021, they participated in the Montréal/Miami New Narratives Lab hosted by the National Film Board of Canada, O Cinema, MUTEK, and FilmGate Interactive. They also earned a Knight New Work 2020 award for their project Oil Ancestors, and a Miami Live Arts Lab Alliance residency to develop Metaphysical Hotline, a performance by telephone for an audience of one. Fereshteh’s project Water Radio: Liquid Intelligence is a series of contemplative canoe and kayak outings supported by The Ellies Creator Award in 2018.
Fereshteh is an Associate Professor in the digital area of the Art and Art History Department of the College of Communication, Architecture, and the Arts at Florida International University. Before joining the faculty at FIU, Fereshteh held a full-time teaching appointment at Columbia College Chicago for 7 years, the Ford Foundation Faculty Fellowship in Arts and Civil Engagement at Syracuse University, and Visiting Assistant Professor appointments at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and Frostburg State University, among others.
​
Documentation of Fereshteh’s artwork and creative research is available on this website and at http://oilancestors.com

The Walk of Armond Scott, 2019

Directed & Edited by Fred Schmidt-Arenales
The Walk of Armond Scott places the viewer inside of the perspective of Armond Scott, a young black lawyer in Wilmington on Nov. 9 1898, on the eve of a white supremacist mass murder and coup d'etat of the city government.
​
Performers: Matt Pearson, Ben Hart, Bonny Nahmias, Emma Jaster, Sara Fenton, Fred Schmidt-Arenales, Talia Shae, Tara O'Con

Fred Schmidt-Arenales
​IMMERSION 3.0 Resident, 2019

Fred Schmidt-Arenales is an artist and filmmaker. His projects attempt to bring awareness to unconscious processes on the individual and group level. He has presented films, installations, and performances internationally at venues including SculptureCenter and Abrons Arts Center, (New York), Links Hall (Chicago), The Darling Foundry (Montreal), LightBox and The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Artspace (New Haven), The Museum of Fine Arts and FotoFest (Houston), Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien (Graz), and Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna). His recent film Committee of Six is an official selection of the 2022-23 Architecture and Design Film Festival and was awarded a jury prize for best film at the 2023 Onion City Experimental Film Festival

the waters whisper sweet solace, ​2023

Directed by Ivy ​Nicole-Jonet
the waters whisper sweet solace is a VR odyssey through the diverse landscapes of North Carolina, where the essence of Black life—its struggles, joys, and deep connections to the land—resonates  through every river, tree, and stretch of sand. Featuring archival footage of Afro-Carolina, this film pays tribute to the ancestors who have called these lands home and toiled upon them, honoring their rich legacy and resilience in the face of the violence of white supremacy. This journey weaves together ancestral memory and spirituality, inviting viewers to embrace the path of liberation. As they explore this immersive realm, they are guided by the echoes of their forebears, whose enduring wisdom lights the way forward, nurturing a vision of hope and unity for all who partake in this exploration.

Collaborators: Courtney Staton, Akeema-Zane, Carrie Hawks, and Brandon King
​

Ivy Nicole-Jonét
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident, 2023
she/they

Ivy Nicole-Jonét is a Black Womxn artist from Greensboro, NC. In their artistic journey, Ivy Nicole-Jonét delves into the boundless realms of Afrofuturism and Black Womxnism, forging a sacred space where the echoes of Ancestors resound and the aspirations of future selves entwine. 
Inspired by the intricate tapestry of Black liberation movements and the cosmic imaginings of Afrofuturist pioneers, they embark on a voyage of intersectionality. Weaving together strands of narrative, archival excavation, 3D digital innovation, and immersive installations, their approach is both an artistic expression and a reverent ritual—an offering to the Ancestors of the past and a guiding light toward a future where Black Womxn take center stage in our shared destiny.

Ivy's creations serve as portals to alternate realities, where past, present, and future converge in a kaleidoscope of memory and possibility, informed by historical narratives drawn from archival footage. Water, emblematic of Black resilience, acts as a transcendent conduit, guiding voyagers through epochs of time. Archival whispers are interwoven into a tapestry of nonlinear revelation, drawing parallels between the Afrofuturist visions and actions of our Ancestors and the realities of the present.

The use of digital tools offers an expansive canvas to explore Blackness in dimensions beyond the physical realm, with water serving as a portal. Viewers are invited to join Ivy on an ancestral odyssey of self-discovery and collective transformation, envisioning a future where Black folx are not just acknowledged but exalted. Their artistic practice is a reflection of their deepest truths—a testament to the resilience, creativity, and boundlessness of Black Womxnhood and folx.

If _ Were Mountains, ​2023​

Directed by Jaimes Mayhew
If ____ were mountains, what would change? Through scale shifts, participatory audio, and artificial landscapes inside an inflatable sculpture, this short speculates about the agency of mountains.

​Length: 4:29

Jaimes Mayhew
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident, 2023
​he/him

Grounded in research, conversation and humor, Jaimes Mayhew employs drawing tools, lenses, and digital realities to craft images that  queer, queery and trans relationships between beings (human or otherwise), their communities and their environments. By creating visual languages that speculate and articulate the natures and nuances of a trans lend, Jaimes hopes to inspire people (trans or otherwise) to expand the ways they see the world.
​
Jaimes’ work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 808 Gallery (Boston), George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), Hoffmannsgallerí (Reykjavík, Iceland). He has received several grants and fellowships including The Fulbright Commission, Maryland State Arts Council, The Saul Zaentz Fund, and the Robert W Deutsch Foundation.Reviews of their work include Hyperallergic, Art Papers, The Creators Project, and Frontiers Journal. In the Fall of 2021, a book chapter of Mayhew’s was published in “Out of Place: Artists Pedagogy and Practice”.

Jaimes is a Lecturer at University of Vermont and serves on the Board of Directors of The School of Making Thinking.

Midst the Sky, 2023

Directed by ​Kiley Brandt
Original poetry intertwined with excerpts from historic Wilmington born David Bryant Fulton’s works: “Hanover; The Persecution of the Lowly. Story of the Wilmington Massacre” and “Recollections of a Sleeping Car Porter”, read by Elton Burgest. 

A poetic exploration of time, grief, and contemplating the multi layers of home on lands that hold memory beyond our own.

6:31 min 

Kiley Brandt
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident, 2023
She/Her

Kiley Brandt (MFA) is a video artist from North Carolina. In her work, Brandt attempts to inspire empathy through sound, poetry and immersive installation to better communicate dissatisfaction with the current political climate and the uncertain displacement many feel within it. Her research areas include diaspora, adoption, immigration and Mexican/American Border politics. She was a 2019 New Media Caucus: Border Control Presenter in Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art- Digital Media at Clemson University, SC.

Surface Tension 2023 & Seascape ​2024

Directed by Kristin McWharter
Seascape 2024
An exploration of the embodied sensations provoked by 360 sound and image. 

Surface Tension 2023
A tactile expiration of Wilmington through the perspective of a prosthetic hand. Filmed as part of the School of Making and Thinking 2023 immersion 5.0 residency.

Kristin McWharter
IMMERSION 5.0 Resident
​she/her/hers

Kristin McWharter is an artist interrogating the relationship between competition and intimacy. Her work conjoins viewers within immersive media installations and viewer- inclusive performances that critically fuse folk games within virtual worlds. Her work has been exhibited widely including at Ars Electronica, Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center, Museo Altillo Beni, and FILE Festival. McWharter received her MFA from UCLA in Design Media Arts and is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Return to No Return, 2022

Director KS Brewer
Descend into a liminal space, the point of transition between breaths. In this convergence of space and time, there is no forwards or back. No ‘you’ divisible from ‘it.’ Everything is now. You are everything. A specter, suffused with open wounds beyond your own. You join the haunting - present for, and implicated in, the last feeble attempts to resuscitate a dead world that needs to die. This is the point of beginning - the end.
​
For more information, including historic context, map of filmed sites, and interview (audio and transcript) with the Historic Wilmington Foundation’s director, Travis Gilbert, visit: https://ksbrewer.com/returnonnoreturn

Produced at The School of Making Thinking’s VR Immersion 4.0 residency, in Wilmington, NC, Summer 2022.
With gratitude for the contributions, assistance, and permission of: The School of Making Thinking, Raymond Mott & the brothers of Giblem Lodge, Travis Gilbert - director of the Historic Wilmington Foundation, and fellow SMT residents brandon King, Maria Barbist & McLean Fahnestock.

KS Brewer
​IMMERSION 4.0 Resident, 2022

KS Brewer is a transdisciplinary artist-researcher and Ph.D. student of Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, exploring life extension and preservation in technoscientific conceptions of present and future life, and alternative outlooks made possible from queer and abject standpoints of decay. Through experiential art, multiple senses, mediums, and technologies are incorporated together in search of affective intra-actions between human and/or inhuman beings.

KS holds a BA in filmmaking from NYU, and uses their training in time-based technologies and experience as a professional fabricator to inform their practice. They have shown their work internationally, including recent shows at the University of Windsor (Windsor, Canada), the Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (Cholula, Mexico), the Amatryx Gaming Lab & Studio (Buffalo, NY), 601 Artspace (New York, NY), and Peer to Space (Berlin, Germany). They’ve been in residence at Stoveworks, PLAYA Center for Art and Science, The School for Making Thinking, Laboratory Spokane, and ChaNorth. Their work has been published in Forbes, Ravelin, and Hyperallergic, and their writing is published in Strange Matters Magazine and World Futures Review (upcoming).

Der Turm, 2022

Directed by Maria Theresa Barbist
​Titled Der Turm, this 360-degree video captures the immersive experience of biking through the sweeping landscapes of Everglades National Park en route to the Shark Valley Observation Tower. The work highlights the concept of finding beauty in the journey itself, inspired by the German saying ‘Der Weg ist das Ziel’ (the path is the goal). Often, in our pursuit of dreams and goals, we miss the stunning details around us. Der Turm encourages viewers to embrace the present moment, showing that the real value lies not just in reaching the tower, but in the path taken to get there.

Maria Theresa Barbist
IMMERSION 4.0 Resident, 2022

​Barbist holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Innsbruck and earned her MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute.

Her notable solo exhibitions include "KINDERLAND" (2019) at Taplin Gallery in Miami, Florida, "FADENSPIELE" (2015) at Swenson Gallery in Miami, Florida, and "LEBENSBILDER – Life in Pictures" (2013) at Studio 16 Gallery in San Francisco, California.
In the realm of group exhibitions, she has been featured at Atchugarry Gallery (Miami, FL) in "Woman at Large" (2024), the Neue Galerie (Innsbruck, Austria) in "Home Is Where The Heart Is" (2018), and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami in "Intersectionality in South Florida" (2016).

Barbist has received recognition for her work, including the prestigious Ellies grant from Oolite Arts in 2020, a Community Grant from the Miami Dade Department for Cultural Affairs in 2019, and an Awesome Foundation grant in 2018. She has also enjoyed residencies at the Bakehouse Art Complex and the Culver Overtown Library through ProjectArt.

Her artwork can be found in the Miami Airport Collection and various private collections. As a member of the BABA Collective, she collected oral histories of South Florida-based artists, a project presented in the Rocking Chair Sessions podcast. During the pandemic, Barbist expanded her creative horizons by recording her debut EP of original songs under the moniker MY AUXILIARY EGO, which was released in June 2021.

Fenced, ​2022

Directed by McLean Fahnestock
This short VR film explores the construction of space in virtual reality using collaged fences and gates, lawns, and skies. In the impossible world of digital location, place can be built, manipulated, and changed around us. 

McLean Fahnestock
IMMERSION 4.0 Resident, 2022
​5.0 Facilitator, 2023
​she/her

The grandchild of an explorer, McLean Fahnestock seeks out footage, images, and items that expand our understanding of place, real and unreal, and question how desire shapes the landscape. McLean received a BFA from Middle Tennessee State University and MFA from California State University Long Beach. Her work has been exhibited and screened across the United States and Internationally at institutions such as the Aurora Picture Show and Menil Collection, Houston, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Black Mountain College Re{Happening}, North Carolina, Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, The California Science Museum, Los Angeles, The British Library, London, and MOCA Hiroshima, Japan. Her work was selected for Off the Screen at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. McLean keeps her studio in Old Hickory, TN.

Spirit Monster, ​2019 

​Created by Talia Shea Levin in collaboration with Emma Bracy, Bonny Nahmias, and Matt Pearson
Picture
Open up your shame, open up your doubt. Set your monster free, drift to sea. Sink into a current as angry as you are. Here you learn to breathe again.
What begins as a ritual reliant on the iconography of wellness and self-care becomes a journey into the darkest parts of ourselves. The viewer becomes the core of a world that turns on the axes of shame, anxiety, and isolation. Inside the ritual they have a place to experience and explore a negative feedback loop dopamine rush of emotions. This is not dissimilar from the hormonal processes that might occur when a viewer watches porn or plays video games, in VR in particular. The viewer may find this unbearable, or they may find it addicting. They will drown, or they will learn to let the darkness fill them with new life, and give them new googly eyes with which to see the birth of their spirit monster.

Created by: Emma Bracy, Bonny Nahmias, Matt Pearson, Talia Shea Levin

Made in residency at The School of Making Thinking in partnership with Cucalorus Film Festival with technical support and sponsorship from ARVR Consultants and UNCW Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Special Thanks: Dominic Cincotti, Abriella Cincotti, Chris Nienow, UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepeneurship, Lauren R Brogdon-Primavera, Nick Szuberla, The Residents of Immersion 3.0, Special Order Co., Sara Fenton, Emma Jaster, Matt Pearson, Ellis Pearson, Sophie Traub, Aaron Finbloom, Dan Brawley
“Raise Your Hand if You Think Evil is Increasing in This World” by Chris Zabriskie licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0

Talia Shea-Levin
IMMERSION 3.0 Resident, 2019

Talia Shea Levin creates new worlds in her work for film, theater, and virtual reality. Her short film MAKE ME A PIZZA premiered at SXSW and slices have been shared since with 40+ festivals including Sitges, Fantasia, Beyond Fest, and Cucalorus. Her road trip time travel short film NEXT TIME won the Audience Award at the Nashville Film Festival. Her dance films have been featured across international platforms and festivals including Short of the Week, Nowness, and the Cut Magazine. She holds a degree in Screenwriting and Directing from Carnegie Mellon University and has continued her education at artist residencies such as the School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus’s VR Immersion 3.0 and PlayLab Film’s workshop in the Peruvian Amazon with renowned filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Portal, 2019

Conceived and Directed by Tara Ocon
Portal invites viewers into a liminal meditative space between what’s present and what’s reflected. In a medium that often titillates us to urgently look around our 360 environment for fear of missing out on our own experience, Portal asks us to just be and see what transforms within as a journey unfolds around us.

Filmed with love and curiosity  at Sugarloaf Trail in Carolina Beach State Park, NC and Greenfield Lake in Wilmington,NC as part of School of Making Thinking’s Immersion 3.0 Creative Residency in partnership with Cucalorus and ARVR Consultants.

Production Assistants: Maya O. Bush, Abrielle Cincotti, Dominic Cincotti, Sara Fenton, Chris Niehow, Talia Shea Levin, Matt Pearson, Clay Scofield
Prop Design/Build: Matt Pearson
Music: Joro Boro
Post Production: Dominic Cincotti, Chris Niehow, Tara Ocon
Special Thanks: Sara Fenton, Emma Jaster, Matt Pearson, Ellis Pearson, Sohie Traub, Aaron Finbloom, Dan Brawley, Rachel Taylor, Lauren Krakauskas, Dominic Cincottie, Abrielle Cincotti, Chris Niehow, UNCW Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Laura R. Brogdon-Primavera, Nick Szuberla​

Tara Ocon
​IMMERSION 3.0 Resident, 2019

Tara Ocon is an actor, director, and dancer with over a decade of experience in immersive and site-specific theater- including original cast collaborations with Third Rail Projects, Then She Fell (Alice), The Grand Paradise (Aqua Twin Girl), and Ghost Light (Victorian Woman); and Alexander Wright's, The Great Gatsby Immersive Show (Off- Broadway, Resident DIrector). She is also a proud graduate of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio Meisner Acting Conservatory Program. She relishes any collaboration where she can help steward exceptional experience design projects that care for humanity and our planet. taraocon.com

Exhibit Curators & Assistants

Akeema-Zane   
IMMERSION Facilitator since 2021
​she/her

See bio above.

clay scofield, they/themmm​
IMMERSION Facilitator since 2021

see bio above.

Remi Harris
IMMERSION 2.0 Resident, 2018 &
IMMERSION 6.0 Facilitator, 2025

Remi Harris is a creative producer, performer, choreographer, facilitator, curator, and arts leader based in NYC. Her dynamic career spans formal and experimental collaborations with trailblazers and contemporaries across a wide array of platforms—on stage, in film, on illegal rooftops, during demonstrations, on terrible floors, and on ice-skating rinks. Grounded in the legacy of her mentors and driven by the joy of movement, her work centers on inclusive community-building and a commitment to fostering meaningful artistic connections.

As a performer, she has collaborated with Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Keigwin + Company, Olek, Racoco/Rx, Christal Brown/INSPIRIT, Coco Karol, Ed Woodham, Catherine Malandrino, Kay Ottinger, Katie Workum, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peter Bjorn, and others. Her choreography has been presented at prestigious venues such as Abrons Art Center (NYC), Brooklyn Studios for Dance (NYC), Danspace Project (NYC), Teatro La Tea (NYC), Triskelion Arts (NYC), CPR - Center for Performance Research (NYC), The Actors Fund Theater (NYC), The Brick Theater (NYC), Thalian Hall (Wilmington, NC), Spectrum Dance Theater (Seattle, WA), the Boll Theatre (Detroit, MI), and numerous site-specific activations across the United States.

As a creative producer and facilitator, Remi has contributed to innovative productions that incorporate cultural histories through movement, sound, research, and immersive technologies. Her leadership in arts administration includes curating interdisciplinary programs, designing residencies, and shaping inclusive spaces that amplify diverse artistic voices. Through her multifaceted roles, Remi continues to explore ways to collaborate, dream, and build together. Born in Barbados and raised in Brooklyn, she remains closely connected to and curious about her roots. www.remitharris.com

Sophie Traub, they/them
IMMERSION Co-Founder and Artistic Executive Director of The School of Making Thinking

Sophie Traub is a queer performing artist and performance creator with extensive strategic, artistic leadership and facilitation experience through their work designing and running residencies for The School of Making Thinking since 2013. Sophie is invested in impact-focused arts programming, facilitating individual and group transformation through creative processes towards social change.  Sophie completed their Masters in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University in Toronto in 2019, focusing on the politics of cultural production and group dynamics in collaboration. Since 2021, Sophie has been leading development and operations for The School of Making Thinking.

FULL LIST OF IMMERSION ALUMNI

Founding Facilitators: Josephine Decker, Naima Ramos-Chapman, Sophie Traub & Dan Brawley
Akeema-Zane
Amy Bergstein
Betsy Holt
brandon king
Bonnie Jones
Bonny Nahmias
Brighid Greene
C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek
Carrie Hawks
CoCoa Alexis
​Courtney Symone Staton
Damani Pompey
Dan Brawley
Deidrea Hamid
Emma Bracy
​Emma Jaster
​Erin Howley
Fereshteh Toosi
Fred Schmidt-Arenales
Gloria Galvez
​Grant Cutler
Ina Indira Shanahan
Inka Rusi 
Ivy Nicole-Jonét
Jaimes Mayhew
Josephine Decker
Kayla M. Lee
Kesswa Music
Kiley Brandt
Kristin McWharter
KS Brewer
Liz Naiden 
Maria Theresa Barbist
Matt Pearson
Maya O. Bush
McLean Fahnestock
Naima Ramos
Natalie Lentz
O Egozy
Remi Harris
Sara Fenton
Sasha Ford
Sherita Solis
Sophia Flo Dacy-Cole
Sophie Traub
Talia Shea Levin
Tara O'Con
Tchaiko Omawale

APPLY TO IMMERSION 6.0

Want to support this work? Donate to The School of Making Thinking.

This exhibit and the IMMERSION residency are made possible through a partnership between The School of Making Thinking and Cucalorus Film Foundation, as well as a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and sponsorships from the Film Studies & Digital Media departments at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), Toasterlab Media and Pomp&Clout.
Cucalorus Film Foundation
Pomp&Clout
University of North Carolina Wilmington
The School of Making Thinking
Toasterlab Media

This program was founded with support from ARVR consultants.

Supporting the IMMERSION Residency: