Message in a Bottle

2023

This project centred on community-designed collages, brought to life through browser-based Augmented Reality. Participants created visual compositions in response to local stories and personal memories, which were then animated and embedded into the physical environment via AR technology. Viewers could access these layered, floating images through their mobile devices—transforming everyday spaces into portals of shared memory.

The work drew conceptual inspiration from the legacy of Mumby’s mineral water, once a source of local pride and famously served at the king’s table. This historical detail became a springboard for the idea of a "message in a bottle"—a poetic frame through which contributors were invited to imagine what memory or message they might seal away for the future. The resulting collages carried fragments of place, emotion, and lived experience: a landscape of personal geographies and quiet reflections.

The use of AR allowed the ephemeral nature of memory to be visually and spatially expressed—images hovering just above the ground, momentarily anchored, then fading. The choice to keep the technology browser-based was intentional: lightweight, accessible, and democratic, allowing wider participation without the need for specialist equipment.

Supported by Matt Reed, the project became both an archive and an experiment—exploring how emerging technologies can hold and share community voices, not through spectacle, but through intimacy, imagination, and layered storytelling.