Innovative and passionate, Idris Brewster is the co-founder of Kinfolk, a non-profit digital and educational platform with a mission to bring Black and Brown narratives to the forefront of the conversation. Kinfolk uses immersive AR experiences to make history come alive, changing how kids learn about historical heroes and filling in holes that school curriculums and cultural institutions leave in history. Listen to the latest episode of the Clever podcast as host Amy Devers talks with Idris Brewster about how he’s using his technical and artistic expertise to disrupt traditional narratives through immersive experiences, empowering others to do the same.
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Not everyone grows up being filmed for a documentary about receiving an education as a Black student at a prestigious, primarily white school, but Brewster did. The project only caught some of his activities, but there was a clear focus on his artistic development. A college grant gave Brewster access to VR technology, allowing him the ability to combine his passions and talents to be expressed through new media. What this ultimately led to was the co-founding of the Kinfolk Foundation in 2017, where Brewster is Executive Director, working with others in augmented reality, location-based technology, and community to engage in placing digital monuments in public spaces, memory building, and foregrounding the Black, Brown, and Queer histories that have been intentionally silenced.
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