Museum of Symmetry

Co-Created by Paloma Dawkins + Ashley Obscura
Narrative Design + Writing by Ashley Obscura

Produced by The National Film Board of Canada (2018)
Purchased by Astrea Immersive (Paris, France)

Awards

Canadian Screen Academy Awards (Canada, 2019)
BEST VR EXPERIENCE 

Festival of International Virtual + Augmented Reality (Canada, 2019)
PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD - INTERACTIVE

Numix Awards (Canada, 2019)
INTERACTIVE PRODUCTION - FICTION

Fantasia International Film Festival 2019
GOLD AUDIENCE AWARD - BEST VR WORK

Cinekid (Netherlands, 2019)
KIDS CHOICE AWARD

North Bend Film Festival (United States, 2018)
PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD: INTERACTIVE

Unity Awards 2018 (United States, 2018)
NOMINATED for BEST VR GAME

Official Selection

Annecy International Animation Film Festival (France)

A MAZE - International Games + Playful Media Festival (Germany)

VRTO (Canada)

Anima Mundi Festival (Brazil)

Part invitation, part dare, an impish game mistress welcomes you into a delightfully disorienting pleasure dome inspired by geometry and nature—and wired with infectious dance beats. What happens next feels like swimming through poetic rainbow juice.

An absurdist mind-and-body romp through the highest clouds to the ocean deep, Museum of Symmetry is the explosive feel-good alter-universe of cartoonist and animator Paloma Dawkins. A room-scale VR metaphor for life, it takes the player through landscapes of earth, fire, wind and water, where vivacious 2D characters live in a 3D playground. Museum of Symmetry disrupts conventional game storytelling to create an unexpected pleasure-positive trip in VR as never experienced before.

Additional Highlights

Museum of Symmetry was produced by the National Film Board of Canada and selected for major international immersive showcases, including the Tribeca Film Festival’s immersive program. Since its release, the work has been exhibited internationally in festivals, museums, and curated XR contexts, and is widely cited as a landmark poetic VR experience. It is frequently referenced in critical, curatorial, and academic discussions on VR as a contemplative, feminist, and affect-driven medium, contributing to early canon-forming conversations around immersive art beyond spectacle or gameplay.