25-2025

What potential does virtual reality have for the presentation of an archive? The essay explores this question using the example of the Virtual Migration Museum project of the Documentation Center and Museum of Migration in Germany (DOMiD). This VR project, which has been launched and keeps evolving since 2017, allows users to explore a three-dimensional fictitious cityscape with several buildings in which real objects from the archive of the DOMiD association are embedded in digitized form through three-dimensional scanning or as replicated digital models. The essay hypothesizes that the complexity of the stories associated with the objects becomes experienceable in virtual reality through spatial constellations and interactivity. Through the possibility of exploring places in virtual space, rotating three-
dimensional archival objects and examining them from all sides, contributing one’s own objects, and engaging with documentary testimonies in various media forms, a living archive emerges. It is suggested that an analysis of the project with approaches from research on interactive documentaries allows us to examine the user’s role, the affordances of the project, and the advantages over traditional archival spaces such as the physical museum. In this way, the essay shows how the preparation and arrangement of different archival objects in virtual reality can result in a multi- perspectival interactive documentary that promotes a deeper understanding of history.