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When Naim Aburaddi was a master’s student in California, he laughed when his friends asked him to go to Joshua Tree National Park to stargaze.��

Growing up in Gaza City, Aburaddi never had the “privilege,” as he called it, to enjoy the night sky—there was always the fear of drones, surveillance or being bombed—but his experience at Joshua Tree changed how he looked at the dark.

As part of his dissertation, Naim Aburaddi organized an event at Fiske Planetarium that combined elements from his project Phoenix of Gaza XR and his personal story. Photo by Jack Moody.

“We live under one sky. I hope that one day we unite under this one sky that we have, and I hope for a better future for everyone,” he said.

That hope was at the center of his event,��Reclaiming Our Sky: A Tale of Immersive Survival, hosted at Fiske Planetarium in the spring.

The planetarium show was born out of��The Phoenix of Gaza XR, an extended reality project he co-founded alongside his mentor Ahlam Muhtaseb, while pursuing his master’s degree at California State University-San Bernardino. Using footage from��Gaza XR, Aburaddi shared his personal story, as well as that of the project itself, to immerse attendees in Gaza, both before and after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

“I left in 2014, and I never had the chance to go back,” he said.��“This project started from a very personal place, with a question of how I can use immersive media, virtual reality and 360 filming to return to Gaza.”��

As a doctoral student with teaching obligations, Aburaddi often used��Gaza XR in the classroom to show students a practical application of virtual reality technology while also encouraging them to connect with a culture half a globe away. He has since used the technology in a class he helped create, A.I., VR and Society, which challenges students to use technology as storytelling tools.

Rather than simply having students read first-person accounts of colonization or segregation, Aburaddi has students interact with immersive media that puts them, digitally, in those situations.��

“�鶹��Ժ learn how to film in 360, and then we’ll see how we can show documentaries in VR before taking them to the planetarium, so they see how the story can be told in a different way, using these different formats,” Aburaddi said.

“In my personal research and the classroom, I’ve looked for ways technology can be used to preserve culture and to create new formats of engagement with displaced people and marginalized communities. So, how can we build this connection with them, and how can we use it for repair and reconstruction?”

Naim Aburaddi hopes that one day, the people of Gaza will be able to look at the sky without fear. Lanterns were projected over livestreamed footage of Gaza stars at the beginning of the show, which also featured live music. Photo by Jack Moody.

Digital historic and cultural preservation wasn’t always his goal, however. It was a byproduct of how the Gaza XR team had to reevaluate its mission after Oct. 7.

Initially, the team hired a local journalist to film daily life in Gaza and “show the happy moments, the beauty and how people made life out of nothing,” Aburaddi said. But following months of retaliatory strikes from Israel, much of Gaza was destroyed—and the team decided that had to be documented, too.

“Most of the locations we had filmed before were gone—the historical locations, the churches, mosques, even the streets and public squares,” Aburaddi said. “We didn’t realize it at first, but this project became a way to preserve history and culture.”

The dangers of acquiring that new footage became all too clear when Yahya Sobeih, the photojournalist hired to capture new scenes, was killed in an airstrike. But the added content has shown hundreds of people Gaza’s resilient residents and rich history—like the centuries-old Turkish bathhouse Hamam al-Samrah, now demolished. Gaza XR has been shown nearly 60 times worldwide at various universities and other venues, but Reclaiming Our Sky was a unique show for the Boulder community.

Almost 120 tickets were sold, but Fiske, which seats 200 people, was nearly filled with students, faculty, staff, community members and even a crew from Japanese public media. Many stopped Aburaddi and other members of the Gaza XR team to congratulate them on their work and ask questions.

All of their feedback, as well as an analysis of the event itself, was included in his dissertation, which explores how virtual reality can preserve culture, engage with marginalized communities and rebuild.

“We encourage students to do multimodal research that includes a creative component as well as the traditional dissertation,” said��Nabil Echchaibi, a professor in media studies and Aburaddi’s advisor.

“Naim is the true embodiment of that interdisciplinary narrative. He's working with people in critical media practices in the Immersive Media Lab and the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media. He feels like he's at home in all these areas, and he brings that to his students, as well.”

Hannah Stewart graduated in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news at the college.