To make history come to life, we partnered with the Russian State Archive to retrieve over 4,000 photographs once stored in the private family albums. Our work to digitize and analyze this trove of family photographs portrayed the Romanovs from a new perspective, resulting in an innovative image-first educational narrative enhanced by extended reality.

Our purpose was not to write yet another history book, but to create something personal and concurrent, connecting two totally different eras through content and creativity.

The AR photo album is a culmination of the many-staged storytelling project. The main drives behind it are visual data and analysis of thousands of photos taken by Russia’s last royal family. Data gathering comprised multiple stages: collecting thousands of century-old analogue pictures into an online archive; identification, tagging & curation of visual data; research & analysis through dozens of sources to put every photo into factual historical context.

The Romanov photo album is a post-digital product due to its trans-media print/AR elements. The purpose of AR is to extend the storytelling through limitations implied by print, and to allow readers become active co-creators of the unfolding story. The app allows an immersive journey into history triggering three interaction types:

- informative (videos, galleries, maps): uses extended reality to tell additional stories through swipeable galleries, AR infographic, short video documentaries rolling inside photos

- visual (panoramas, now/then AR images): AR app allows to zoom-in high-resolution images and experience them from additional angles

- emotional (love letters, colorizations, VR animation art): 3D animations which come to life on the book pages offering a fresh emotional connection to the Romanov family. It creates a learning experience through artistic and playful adventure.

#Romanovs100 is research into history through the visual language of photography combined with extended reality. The project aims to show that learning history can be compelling and interactive. The photo album we created as a culmination of the project is a post-digital product due to its trans-media print/AR elements. With it, we employ extended reality as a legitimate tool without which storytelling would not be possible or complete, especially where print is concerned.

The Romanovs were photography pioneers — in the early 20th century they owned the world's first portable cameras capturing almost every meaningful event in their lives.

On July 17, 1918, Nicholas Romanov, last Tsar of the Russian Empire, his wife and five children were executed by the Bolsheviks. To pay tribute to the family, we merged a large set of visual data with transmedia storytelling to piece out the big picture of a "lost Russia". Thousands of the Romanov’s images were converted into platform-specific social media narratives on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram with accounts on each network showcasing unique format and content.

Objectives:

- create an immersive educational project that can resonate with “new generations” fully-adapted to social media

- transforming content to an interactive AR book which makes learning experiences an emotional journey into history

- introduce new approaches which can be effectively used in history education courses

To make history come to life, we partnered with the Russian State Archive to retrieve over 4,000 photographs once stored in the private family albums. Our work to digitize and analyze this trove of family photographs portrayed the Romanovs from a new perspective, resulting in an innovative image-first educational narrative enhanced by extended reality.

Our purpose was not to write yet another history book, but to create something personal and concurrent, connecting two totally different eras through content and creativity.

The AR photo album is a culmination of the many-staged storytelling project. The main drives behind it are visual data and analysis of thousands of photos taken by Russia’s last royal family. Data gathering comprised multiple stages: collecting thousands of century-old analogue pictures into an online archive; identification, tagging & curation of visual data; research & analysis through dozens of sources to put every photo into factual historical context.

In its first stage, the project #Romanovs100 ran for one hundred days on four social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram) recounting in linear and non-linear narratives the private lives of Nicholas II and his family. The project engaged younger audiences: most of our 55,000+ fans and followers are aged 18-24.

The photo album, the final stage of this project, enhances this experience of history learning. It combines the visual language of photography with AR tech to create an interactive history book with the focus on the humane story.

Premiered on March 4, 2019 during SXSW EDU festival in the US, it attracted viewers of all ages and qualifications, from children aged 8 to long established scholars. This was mainly achieved thanks to the AR app which helped to break the ice between potential learners and difficult historical material.

The Romanov photo album is a post-digital product due to its trans-media print/AR elements. The purpose of AR is to extend the storytelling through limitations implied by print, and to allow readers become active co-creators of the unfolding story. The app allows an immersive journey into history triggering three interaction types:

- informative (videos, galleries, maps): uses extended reality to tell additional stories through swipeable galleries, AR infographic, short video documentaries rolling inside photos

- visual (panoramas, now/then AR images): AR app allows to zoom-in high-resolution images and experience them from additional angles

- emotional (love letters, colorizations, VR animation art): 3D animations which come to life on the book pages offering a fresh emotional connection to the Romanov family. It creates a learning experience through artistic and playful adventure.

Our project aims to show that learning history can be compelling and interactive. It targets younger audiences with innovative formats and digital approaches in educational storytelling.

#Romanovs100 has been selected to showcase at one of the world’s biggest educational festivals - SXSW EDU 2019 in Austin, Texas where we exclusively presented the AR book. The response from educators and students was overwhelming as we handed over dozens of copies to public libraries, to universities of Texas, Phoenix, New York, Cornell and many other educational institutions who showed high interest.

In general, #Romanovs100 had a remarkable impact across social media. The project generated over 25 million impressions & gathered around 55,000 fans & followers combined. Social media posts generated over 1 million engagements.

The project received global media coverage, featuring in The History Extra magazine, BBC News Hour, Tatler, Sky News, Daily Mail, and more.