Sink or Swim (2022)

How might we conserve stories of Water and its intangible cultural heritage, set against the backdrop of climate change? A sound-driven Virtual Reality installation, comprising headset VR, projected animation, ambient audio and scent.

TEAM: Shuyue Li, Madhavi Bhagwat, Hadar Vishne
ROLE: Concept, Interviews, Writing, VR development (Unreal Engine)







︎︎︎The Experience


Sink or Swim tells the sonic stories of six people and their personal and cultural memories of water.

The unique methodology of this project involved recording participant interviews, collaborating with a poet to turn those interviews into poems, and having the original interviewees narrate and re-record their poems; which were then developed into immersive soundscapes.

Collaborators: Hadar Green (poet)
Interviewees: Huiwen Ren, Mao, Matt Dixon, Sharon, Sofia Economou, Tanvi Babbar and Ye Zhang.





Navigate to the different stories held inside a bubble on the ocean floor




Fluid environments that shift with the tone of the story, with captions for the narration soundscape.




Some poems from my documentation of the project.















© 2025 Madhavi Bhagwat