A Funded Residency Will Teach Decolonial Storytelling in VR

Rotterdam Writers' Rooms has published an open call for six writers to join The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a funded research program on telling difficult colonial histories in virtual reality. Applications close Friday, Nov. 20, at 5 p.m. Dutch time, and the application form adds a second limit: only the first 50 applications will be considered.

The program runs from January to April 2027 as seven three-hour sessions, set up as research labs where participants work with experts, researchers and each other. Partners on the call include the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Dutch national library, where participants get access to curated collections and field visits, along with the art space West Den Haag, Hogeschool Inholland and Studio Biarritz. Each writer receives a participation fee of €700 for completing the program and ends it with a short VR story treatment or a script.

The call is aimed at mid-career and established writers working in any medium who have an interest in, or experience with, post- and neo-colonialism. It specifically urges writers from Dutch colonial backgrounds to apply. No VR experience is required; the organizers supply headsets, tools and technical support. Applicants need to work in both Dutch and English, and send a CV, a short portfolio and a pitch.

Rotterdam Writers' Rooms describes itself as a pilot incubator for writing teams centered on makers of color, and has staged talks at International Film Festival Rotterdam. The new program applies that writers'-room model to a medium where the audience stands inside the scene. The call lists the questions it will work through as the do's and don'ts of difficult histories in VR and how to approach culturally sensitive subjects.

Killscreen has followed Dutch work on this history before, including a 2016 report on a Dutch game maker confronting Europe's colonial past, and has covered Studio Oleomingus taking apart colonial histories of India.

For more reading, see Dutch videogame maker aims to confront Europe's colonial past, Studio Oleomingus deconstructed colonial histories of India, Studio Oleomingus Shows a Game About Mapping Paradise and Rotterdam Writers' Rooms' links page.