Still Here AR

Jasmine Smith returns to Harlem, New York City after being locked up for 15 years. However, gentrification has changed the neighborhood she once knew. How does this impact Jasmine’s ability to rebuild her life?

Find out by stepping into Harlem through a virtual door, and hear Jasmine’s interactions and experience her anxieties. The Still Here audio and Augmented Reality (AR) experience is produced by AJ Contrast, Al Jazeera’s immersive storytelling and media innovation studio, and based on real life experiences of formerly incarcerated women of color.

More about Still Here AR:

- The AR experience is part of the larger Still Here immersive project about incarceration, erasure and gentrification that premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Still Here comprises three parts – interactive VR, audio with AR and a photo exhibit.
- At 18 minutes, the audio and AR experience is the longest narrative AR story ever created.
- The audio story follows a composite character named Jasmine Smith who spends 15 years in prison for killing her boyfriend in self-defense.
- The audio story is divided into three chapters and each chapter is accompanied by an AR filter of a street or a coffee shop in Harlem.
- Explore the AR filters by placing the virtual door, entering the street or coffee shop through the door and walking freely around the space.
- The stories included in the interactive VR and audio AR part of Still Here were crafted in collaboration with formerly incarcerated women, who are part of Women’s Prison Association (WPA) in NYC.
- Learn more about Still Here and AJ Contrast here: https://ajcontrast.com/still-here