Image 1 of 1
Mikaela Lindsay
Land of the Free
My thesis project explores the use of a virtual reality game to encourage people to think critically about the erasure of Black identities through anti-Blackness across time.
Land of the Free is set in a dystopian city where everything is white, and the use of color is seen as a violent threat and therefore deemed illegal. Players take on the role of Raven, a Black female graffiti artist who discovers a portal to this city and must return color to the world while dodging autonomous color-detecting drones.
Through this game, I resist the erasure of Black identities, present anti-Blackness as a contemporary issue, and reclaim space for Black women in gaming.
Growing up, I was raised by gamers. PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, we had all of them. So much of my childhood was spent in front of the TV, playing or watching my family play video games. It was a time where we gathered around, had fun, and got competitive. I began to see games' ability to cultivate community.
However, Black women make up about 2–3% of the computing workforce. Narrowing that down to game developers makes the number almost non-existent. The video game industry desperately lacks Black female perspectives, so I decided to give mine.
