Title	WAR: KIDS' DRAWINGS IN VR ANIMATION
Brand	RT
Product/Service	VIDEO SERIES
Category	G03. New Realities & Voice Activation
Entrant	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Production	RT Moscow, RUSSIA

Name	Company	Position
Kirill Karnovich-Valua	RT	Creative Director
Denis Semionov	Sa1nt Denis	Art Direction, VR Artist
Revaz Todua	RT	Designer
Eldar Salamov	RT	Music & Sound design
Gleb Burashov	RT	Social Media Strategy
Ania Fedorova	RT	Producer
Elena Medvedeva	RT	Producer
Lilly Kazakova	RT	PR Director
Ivor Crotty	RT	Producer
Katya Motyakina	RT	Producer
Ivan Fursov	RT	Research & data
Margo Tskhovrebova	RT	Administrative Manager
Stuart Campbell	Sutu Eats Flies	VR Artist
Vladimir Ilic	VRHuman	VR Artist
Rosie Summers	Rosie Summers	VR Artist

Background

The Siege of Leningrad is known as the longest siege in history. Lasting for almost 900 days it took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who had to survive in horrendous conditions - freezing in winter, struggling with water during summer, dying of hunger. That was an extremely challenging time for children who lived in the city. Some of them would still attend school and kindergarten and during class they would draw what they saw. For decades, the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg has kept about 700 of those unique children’s drawings. These drawings from kindergartens, orphanages and schools, reflect a child’s view of wartime, exposing their feelings and thoughts. Almost every drawing has an accompanying text — a short story by a child about what they drew. Educators often recorded such stories and pasted them into albums, preserving them as a document of the era. 

Describe the strategy

For the 75th anniversary of WW2 Victory we decided to bring these drawings back to life — through virtual reality. The video series is an artistic tribute that aims to show how interactive technologies can help preserve and showcase cultural heritage and how this heritage can be repackaged and revived through digital art.  To re-create children's worlds from their drawings in VR we have gathered the world's best XR artists. The series consists of 20 episodes and each episode is devoted to a single drawing. Our global team of VR artists have transformed historic war-time drawings into virtual space, each creating a 3D illustration in their unique style.

Describe the execution

Sutu (Australia): "I was shocked to learn how the drawings were made by the young children of World War 2, who were required to attend school during the war. Even though the illustrations are child-like they capture a raw intensity, warships flying overhead, bombs exploding, a ravaged landscape. It is clear the impact of the war had a very visceral effect on the children.” Rosie Summers (UK): "These drawings aren’t just drawings, they are preserved parts of their lives on paper, their memories, stories and experiences. It really shows the power that the art has: it’s that visual window into their minds and how these children perceived war.” Vladimir Ilic (Germany): “The perspective of children is one of the closest lenses we have to see reality as it is. Seeing and interpreting a child’s drawing in VR is maybe the purest form of art we as humans can experience.”

List the results

"War: Kids' Drawings in VR animation" is part of the #VictoryPages project - a versatile social media documentary commemorating the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The digital, multi-platform, educational project assesses the historical magnitude of May 9th, 1945 through personal impressions of contemporaries and from a fresh perspective provided by digital art and creativity. It is a story of Victory told by the young, for the young, using the tools and language of modern media over five social networks. The video series has been watched over 300,000 times attracting over 100,000 engagements on social media. Generally, since the start of the project #VictoryPages generated more than 35 million impressions, 250,000 engagements, over 50,000 followers, 4,000,000 video views (800,000 minutes of watch time) and 200+ publications in media.