ECHOES OF THE DISPLACED 念 2025 Original

In the current landscape of cultural heritage exhibition, especially within museums, sensory immersion is often prioritized over emotional resonance and affective communication. This has contributed to a disconnect between visitors and the deeper cultural, historical, and emotional narratives embodied in artifacts. This research proposes a new interdisciplinary framework for multisensory, emotionally responsive heritage storytelling, situated at the intersection of affective communication, experimental museology, and AI-based transmedia storytelling. Through a practice-based research methodology that combines both online and in-situ ethnographic fieldwork, structured interviews, observational analysis, and iterative design practice, the study explores how AI-enhanced augmented reality (AR), narrative text, voice and sound design, and 3D modeling and animation can be integrated into heritage communication systems. The aim is to address what this study defines as the “heritage empathy gap”—the failure of conventional display methods to foster empathetic, culturally situated understanding. By translating culturally specific meanings into emotionally resonant experiences, the research foregrounds the affective dimensions of historical loss, dislocation, and memory. It repositions digital storytelling not merely as a tool for interpretation, but as a form of affective cultural restitution, capable of restoring narrative agency to displaced artifacts and fostering a deeper sense of empathy and relational accountability between audiences and heritage. Ultimately, this project contributes a scalable framework for emotionally engaging and decolonial heritage experiences in the 21st century.