Immersive Places

Digital storytelling for ecologically informed behaviour change across Dartmoor National Park
Immersive places logo over the River Dart at Spitchwick

Immersive Places

Digital storytelling for ecologically informed behaviour change across Dartmoor National Park
Title: Immersive Places: Digital storytelling for ecologically informed behaviour change across Dartmoor National Park
Funded by:
Funding amount: £19,622
Location: Dartmoor National Park
Dates: May 2026 – March 2027
Project partners: Dartmoor National Park Authority, Duchy of Cornwall 
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­ PI: Dr Zoe Latham
 

Overview

Immersive Places explores how creative, place-based storytelling can turn ecological data into something meaningful for the people whose everyday activities affect Dartmoor’s rivers. 
Working with Dartmoor National Park Authority and the Duchy of Cornwall, the project combines lived experience with ecological evidence and shares it through immersive, site-specific film and projection.
Ecological evidence, experienced within the landscapes to which it relates.

Objectives

  • Record narrative interviews with river users (swimmers, anglers, walkers, climbers and canoeists) to understand how they connect to specific Dartmoor places and what environmental knowledge they already hold.
  • Bring these lived-experience narratives into dialogue with existing ecological datasets.
  • Create immersive film and projection outputs for Dartmoor 'places of intersection', where rivers, landscape, infrastructure and visitor activity meet.
  • Hold public screenings in situ to gather qualitative insight into how audiences interpret environmental information and reflect on their own behaviour.
  • Work with partners to synthesise findings into communication models that could inform future visitor engagement strategies.

Context of the issue

Scientific knowledge about river health is growing, including evidence of declining salmon populations, water pollution and habitat degradation. Yet there is still a persistent gap between this evidence and how people understand and respond to environmental change in the places they value. 
Closing this gap matters for organisations managing fragile river environments such as those on Dartmoor, particularly at high-pressure visitor sites.
River Dart at Spitchwick

How the project addresses the issue

Instead of starting from the science, the project starts from people's existing relationships with place. It co-produces stories with Dartmoor user groups that weave ecological data into those relationships, then presents them at the sites themselves. 
This responds directly to partners' interest in new forms of visitor engagement. It also shows how arts and humanities research can support environmental governance by deepening public understanding, encouraging responsible stewardship, and building more sustainable relationships between people and place.
Immersive cinema experience of a riverbed on a dome screen
 

Centre for Place

The Centre for Place is an interdisciplinary research hub that tackles contemporary societal and global challenges through place-based inquiry. 
The Centre integrates creative placemaking, arts–health research, and advanced quantitative methods within robust humanities and social science frameworks, seeking to become a world leader in place-based research, emphasising the importance of place in shaping communities and individuals, and providing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to urgent global research challenges.
Buildings viewed through abstract monument Centre for Place