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STORY

Shivani Karan is an immersive artist whose work in Virtual Reality and mixed media transforms memory and heritage into sensory virtual landscapes, where personal and collective histories intertwine. A fourth generation descendant of Indian Girmityas, Shivani was born in Fiji and is now based in Tāmaki Makaurau, crafting works that are both intimate and expansive. Her collaborations with local and international artists, including Grammy-winning producer Hazebanga and Māori contemporary musician Allana Goldsmith, reflect her exploration of cultural and indigenous perspectives using new technologies to reimagine places and stories for future generations. Her award-winning project, Lane25, which was honoured at Doc Edge 2024, is an invitation to wander through liminal spaces, exploring how memory, sound, visuals and digital landscapes can be merged to re-imagine who we are.

"What I try to capture is a feeling, the real essence of a place. My work of course is inherently tied to a complex past but I want it to spark imagination and creativity and bold adventurous ideas about how we could express ourselves in the future."

• Shivani Karan, founder of Lane25

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TALAM

BY SHIVANI KARAN

In 2020, during the isolation of the pandemic, I began a journey to reconnect with the music of my ancestors by learning the Kanjira, a traditional Indian drum my grandfather used to play. With local lessons unavailable, I turned to the internet and found my teacher, Sankar Ji, all the way from Chennai. Under his guidance, I started to build a connection to this rhythmic craft. Though my journey is still unfolding, by 2022, while residing in Los Angeles (pictured), I composed a short piece that would later become part of the VR experience Lane25. This was a transformative period, as I connected the threads of heritage, music, and digital art.