The Collection

A participatory AR archive brings together the fragments that shape creative life: objects, materials, sketches, ideas and memories. Using Snap Spectacles, members of the RCA community capture these traces and encounter one another's stories in the spaces where creative work happens.

2026

Participatory AR archive

Snap Spectacles x RCA Programme

RCA x Snap: Augmented Un/Realities, The Hangar Space, Royal College of Art

Hands examine a small piece of material in front of a wall of visual references, with The Collection title overlaid. — Materials, sketches and everyday observations form the starting point of the collection.

The fragments behind creative work

Creative work is often represented through finished outcomes, while the experiments, materials and everyday moments that shape it remain unseen. Developed through the Snap Spectacles x RCA Programme, the project invites participants from across the Royal College of Art to contribute a fragment from their creative world, together with a short story or reflection.

Each contribution offers a different way of noticing. Bringing them together creates a shared source of inspiration across studios and disciplines.

A person wearing Spectacles raises a hand while looking around a studio filled with shelves and work surfaces. — Observing the studio through Spectacles.

Capture Mode

A texture, a colour or the way light falls into a room can become the beginning of a contribution. Capture Mode lets participants outline and save a fragment through Spectacles, pausing to notice something they might otherwise pass by.

A yellow AR prompt and a glowing outline gesture appear in a brick-walled studio. — Capture Mode: outlining and collecting a creative fragment.

Blue keyword labels and small captured images form an AR network in front of a window overlooking a garden. — Fragments and keywords add another layer to the surrounding environment.

Image analysis and AI-generated keywords

AI analyses captured images to generate keywords that describe the fragments. These words offer starting points for finding associations between contributions from different people and disciplines.

The suggested keywords sit alongside the stories and reflections shared by participants. Together, they help connect visual details and personal experiences across the archive.

An AR message reading Reading fragment appears above an outlined area in a room with shelves and tables. — Reading a captured fragment in Capture Mode.

A hand reaches towards blue and yellow AR labels floating over a brick-walled studio. — Collection Mode: discovering fragments and connections in the surrounding space.

Collection Mode

Collection Mode brings contributions into the surrounding space. As participants move through studios, they encounter fragments left by other people where creative work actually happens.

Images, stories and keywords add another layer to the environment. Fragments can be read in relation to one another, revealing unexpected connections across experiences and perspectives.

A vertical web archive of photographic fragments and keyword labels against a softly blurred background. — The Collection web archive: browsing contributions and their connections.

A cut-out view of grapes, glassware and a checked tablecloth in the archive entry titled checkered table feast, with keyword tags below. — An individual fragment and its keywords in the web archive.

A shared web archive

The accompanying website gathers the fragments into a collection that can also be explored on a screen. A constellation view connects contributions through keywords, while individual entries make room to look more closely at each captured fragment.

Moving between the spatial experience and the web archive offers different ways to follow a connection, revisit a contribution and discover another person's perspective.

A group gathers around people wearing Spectacles in a busy room with brick walls. — A shared encounter with Spectacles. © Sung Hoon

Every contribution adds another perspective. Together, these fragments create opportunities for discovery, dialogue and collective imagination.

Credits

Co-creators: Kiryung Arrddon Nam, Crystal Acqua, Liwen Zhang
Programme leads: Jack Hardiker, Shira Wachsmann, Shahwil Shayan, Tom Simmons
Programme team: The team at Snap
Programme coordinator: Katrina Nolan
Programme films and documentation: Sung Hoon Song
Show curator: Sam Chester