The Clarkston AR Gateways Project: Anchoring Refugee Presence and Narratives in a Small Town

TL;DR

The paper addresses how to anchor refugee presence and narratives in a small town using AR, detailing a two-phase Clarkston project that progresses from a completed Phase 1 to a Phase 2 integrating AR through participatory design. It situates the work within a landscape of refugee-focused AR projects, arguing for ethics of care, representation, and reflexive storytelling rather than trauma-centric or commodified approaches. By foregrounding site-specific AR and refugee-led co-design, the work proposes a scalable placemaking model that embeds cultural heritage and present-day identities into public space. The anticipated contributions include practical templates, design documentation, and community-driven methodologies to empower residents, foster cultural orientation, and advance spatial justice in public art.

Abstract

This paper outlines the Clarkston AR Gateways Project, a speculative process and artifact entering its second phase, where Augmented Reality (AR) will be used to amplify the diverse narratives of Clarkston, Georgia's refugee community. Focused on anchoring their stories and presence into the town's physical and digital landscapes, the project employs a participatory co-design approach, engaging directly with community members. This placemaking effort aims to uplift refugees by teaching them AR development skills that help them more autonomously express and elevate their voices through public art. The result is hoped to be AR experiences that not only challenge prevailing narratives but also celebrate the tapestry of cultures in the small town. This work is supported through AR's unique affordance for users to situate their experiences as interactive narratives within public spaces. Such site-specific AR interactive stories can encourage interactions within those spaces that shift how they are conceived, perceived, and experienced. This process of refugee-driven AR creation reflexively alters the space and affirms their presence and agency. The project's second phase aims to establish a model adaptable to diverse, refugee-inclusive communities, demonstrating how AR storytelling can be a powerful tool for cultural orientation and celebration.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: Left: The Clarkston crosswalk mural was completed in April 2023. Right: First grade children from Indian Creek Elementary coloring in a preliminary design workshop. Their drawings were sources for our first iterative ideas of what would be appropriate for the space.