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Unsung Augmented Reality learning experience | Kinfolk

Story, research and concept development for a Verizon Open Innovation educational augmented reality experience for NYC middle school students. Unsung explores the lives of two Black women singers, one a lesbian, who were overlooked by most histories.

Florence Mills was a cabaret singer and dancer during the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.  As a teenager she was in a traveling vaudeville act with her two older sisters and then shot to international fame in a few short years. She broke ground for Black performers and audiences, while confronting racial stereotypes along the way.  When Mills' funeral was held in Harlem in 1927, over 150,000 people poured onto the streets to mourn her. 

Ernestine "Tiny" Davis was a trumpet virtuoso and a member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all-woman big band in the era of the Second World War. Her fans included Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. She went on to tour and record with her own band, Hell Divers, and co-owned a lesbian bar in 1950s Chicago alongside her partner, drummer, pianist and bass player Ruby Lucas.  Called “Tiny and Ruby’s Gay Spot”, it was a popular LGBT nightspot where Davis and Lucas performed together and had a dedicated following. 

Unsung takes a gamified, immersive approach to learning, with students using their tablets or other Android/iOS device to look around one of eight virtual scenes, talk to characters, and learn information about their lives. 


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