Dark Rooms

Brilliant and unnerving and finally rather moving – The Guardian

Dark Rooms is a sensory, site-specific VR experience and an animated documentary based on real stories. Moving together in groups of up to three, visitors enter intimate narratives of sexuality, identity, trauma and transformation, narrated by the people who lived them. Their experiences unfold through dreamlike environments with a touch of a dark fairytale: emotionally explicit, but never graphically explicit.

Its three protagonists co-created their stories under the principle “nothing about us, without us”. Anjay breaks free from religious oppression and enters Berlin’s kink scene; Trixie D. finds healing from childhood trauma through the trust of puppy play; yaalioness reclaims power through ritualised, consensual play. The creators bring documentary intimacy into a radically immersive form, allowing visitors to move together through inner worlds shaped by desire, shame and self-acceptance, approached with care and respect.

Through its collective free-roam format, Dark Rooms turns VR into a space of shared witnessing. Rather than replacing lived experience, the immersive environment creates a way of approaching another person’s memories, emotions and perspective while leaving the authorship of those experiences with the people themselves.

Dark Rooms premiered in the Venice Immersive section of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival in 2025. It was subsequently selected for SXSW and CPH:DOX, where it received a Special Mention in the Inter:Active competition. At NewImages Festival 2026 in Paris, it won the XR Competition Grand Prize and shared the Impact Award.

Its presentation at Patchlab Digital Art Festival marks the work’s Polish premiere.

_____