immersive

ART

BY SHIVANI KARAN

Shivani Karan creates distinctive immersive artworks. Winner of Doc Edge Best immersive impact award 'Lane25' combines VR and AR technology, preserving untold histories for future generations.

"Lane 25 was a standout feature of Hidden Inheritance, demonstrating Shivani’s ability to merge digital technology with narrative-driven artwork. Her forward-thinking approach pushed the boundaries of traditional art engagement, creating immersive storytelling environments that deepened the audience’s understanding of the exhibition. Through AR and VR experiences, she invited audiences to step into digitally constructed spaces that re-imagined personal and collective histories, making the experience both intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant." - Dr. Sione Faletau

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STORY

Shivani Karan is an award-winning VR and mixed-media immersive artist. She explores memory, migration, and blends personal photographic, audio and visual media with digital landscapes to create an evocative, immersive experiences.

A fourth-generation descendant of Girmityas, Shivani was born in Fiji and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her practice weaves together intimate family narratives with expansive cultural histories, reimagining places and stories for future generations.

Shivani has collaborated locally and internationally, including with Grammy-winning producer Hazebanga on PM Playground and Māori contemporary musician Allana Goldsmith on the VR experience Te Rerenga o Muriwai. She also develops immersive projects with Māori health professor Dr. Deborah Heke, including Ngā Pou Māreikura, which explores wāhine’s embodied practices in te taiao as pathways to reciprocal healing.

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. Through her practice, Shivani continues to expand the potential of VR and mixed media as tools for storytelling, healing, and cultural continuity.

"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

Featured at Doc Edge 2025

‘Te Rerenga o Muriwai’ is a virtual reality artwork and story telling experience based on the voyaging ancestress Muriwai. Muriwai is well known as a voyager around Aotearoa and across the Pacific Ocean. She is a paramount ancestor and rangatira to the many tribes from the Mataatua waka and also throughout Aotearoa, from Te Whakatōhea to the Hokinga.

Co-creator Allana Goldsmith (Ngāti Porou, Ngāi Tai) is a creative practice emerging researcher and musician who uses her voice to weave stories. Co-creator Shivani Karan is a digital artist and previously created and exhibited her own VR work ‘Lane25’ in 2024 and won the immersive award at Doc Edge. Together Allana and Shivani have developed ‘Te Rerenga o Muriwai’ VR as an innovative way of storytelling in the digital realm and develop their art forms in spaces that push creative boundaries.

Director: Shivani Karan
Artist: Allana Goldsmith
Song: Hoata
"A stunning black-and-white music video, directed by Shivani Karan. Visually rooted in the energy of the hoata moon, the video brings to life the tension and harmony found in the maramataka, where movement mirrors the moon’s pull." - Music NZ

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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 from, Chennai, India. 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.