Fundación Oasis Urbano – Michaela French – Double Dome Films – Planetario de Medellín
British Council – Circular Culture Fund 2025
Sometimes an unexpected introduction to a friend of a friend leads to the most extraordinarily beautiful opportunity. In March 2025, I was introduced to Max Becker, a German architect and co-founder of Fundación Oasis Urbano, an intercultural and multidisciplinary collective based in Moravia in Medellín, Colombia. Our conversation began as an invitation for me to participate as Artist-in-Residence in the 2nd Festival International De Cine Communitario De Moravia (FICCMoravia) in December 2025. Then synchronicity kicked in and the project unfolded and expanded in a number of delightful ways.
The FICCMoravia residency would include screenings of my films, but this would require a projection dome. By chance, the Planetario de Medellín is located only 10-minutes walk away from Oasis Urbano, however, culturally, the Parque Explora Science Centre is a world away from the informal neighbourhood of Moravia. This was an opportunity to build creative and cultural bridges…and fulldome networks.
The day before this conversation, new members had been introduced to the FCN WhatsApp group. I’d seen this in the feed and noted they were from Colombia. I’d screened films at Planetario de Bogota, so I found it interesting that more people from that region were creating fulldome content. The next day when Max asked if I had any connections to the fulldome community in Colombia, I was able to say yes! Somewhat randomly, I messaged Juan Felipe Orozco and Daniela Carrascal from Double Dome Films via the FCN to ask if they would like to be part of a fulldome project…we all met online 24-hours later and the Laboratorio Fulldome was born.
Felipe and Daniela were already connected to the Planetario de Medellín and it was agreed we could have a fulldome workshop and public screening at Parque Explora. Collectively, but mostly through Max’s efforts, we applied for the British Council’s Circular Cultures Grant (Latin America and the Caribbean) and were awarded funding to support the Laboratorio Fulldome project.
Thematically, Laboratorio Fulldome aligned with Fundación Oasis Urbano’s commitment to sustainability, community co-creation, education and artistic engagement and responded to the Circular Cultures remit of cultural exchange and sustainable practices within the arts. We adopted an ecological lens using 360° film to explore the interrelation between the urban environment, human inhabitants and the natural world in the vibrant and complex microcosm of Moravia.
We sent an open call to artists within the Medellín region and selected a diverse group of creative practitioners including a photographer, musician, anthropologist, sound artist, educator, filmmaker, and a variety of media artists.
I arrived in Moravia 4-days before the workshop began. What a place it is! Initially completely overwhelming with the noise, colour, people, dynamism, dogs, motorbikes, music, kids, food, smells, histories, complexity, community and love. What felt like utter chaos at first encounter emerged over a couple of days as a beautiful, vibrant, supportive, relational flow of communal living. I joined volunteers and community members in creating banners and placards for the FICCMoravia Opening Parade. I helped with communal cooking, and was fed, hugged, guided and welcomed into the Oasis Urbano community.
Before I arrived, I’d met Felipe and Daniela from Double Dome online with the Fundación Oasis Urbano team to develop the workshop schedule and content. We did our best to create a shared vision around my very rudimentary Spanish, and with the idea that we may need to adapt our plan as we went along.
Laboratorio Fulldome took place over 3-days and from the first day Felipe, Daniela and I shared the workshop delivery like a much-practiced well-rehearsed collaborative dance that unfolded in a fluid, responsive and inspiring exchange between ourselves and the artist participants. Santiago Jara Ramírez from the Colombian British Council also joined the Laboratorio to observe and understand how the principle of Circular Cultures was actually applied through collaborative co-creation. For me, this was the first time a representative from a funding body ever participated in a funded project I’d been part of. Santiago was brilliant, insightful and deeply engaged. He set an extraordinary precedent for productive and collaborative relationships between funders, arts organisations, artists and participants. We were all very grateful for his enthusiasm and contribution.
The Laboratorio focused on creative storytelling and designing immersive experiences rather than the specific technical processes of fulldome filmmaking. The artists drew on their existing skills, knowledge and creative practices to collectively devise and create a collaborative short film reflecting the ecological, social and sustainable themes of the workshop. Filming with 360° cameras and recording interviews and soundscapes in Moravia and the surrounding neighbourhood, including the beautiful Jardín Botánico de Medellín, the participants gathered images, ecologies, stories and histories of a place and a community that had never seen themselves represented on a dome before.
Watching the artists, adopt and apply the knowledge we’d shared was extraordinary. In 3-days this group of strangers moved from introduction to collaboration as they became Collectivo Domista – they shared stories and practices, presented their ideas, worked collectively to develop a narrative and took ownership of Laboratorio Fulldome. Their hive mind and collective endeavour enabled them to create their first short fulldome film ‘Resiliencia’ – a 5-minute tribute to the strength, resilience, courage, fortitude and love required to build community in the face of extreme poverty and violence.
For those of us already working in fulldome, it was so valuable to get out from behind our computer screens, to share knowledge and remember why we’re so excited about this medium in the first place. The Double Dome team worked so hard – Daniela animated a series of motion graphics for the film’s title sequence based on illustrations by Oasis Urbano artist Dubian Monsalve, and Felipe spent all night editing and rendering the final domemaster files. Mauricio Arango and Carlos Vasquez were standing by at Planetario de Medellín ready to upload the final film just moments before the doors opened for a FICCMoravia public fulldome screening.
The premiere of Collectivo Domistas’ film ‘Resiliencia’ was accompanied by curated program of artistic fulldome works including Swarm by Maarten Isaäk de Heer, Liminality by 4Pi Productions, Mountain Nocturne by Lynne Tomlinson, Entropy by Double Dome Films and a mini-retrospective of Michaela’s fulldome films Light of Home, Climate Crimes and In Here, Out There.
The audience loved it! There were cheers, and tears, and requests for repeat screenings. Moravia’s legendary community leader Mama Chila said she ‘wished that those who had died fighting for the Moravian community could have seen ‘Resiliencia’ because that’s what they were fighting for’. Resiliencia was screened again by popular demand at Planetario de Medellín on Saturday 31st January 2026.
Collectivo Domista will continue to work together with support from myself and Oasis Urbano to create a new fulldome film project which they plan to premiere at Double Dome’s Viva Immersiva fulldome festival in Medellín in November 2026.
For me, this project with its connection to the FCN reflects exactly the principles, opportunities and communities that we envisaged when we founded the Fulldome Creative Network in 2020. It’s made it possible to find like-minded ‘dome-shaped’ collaborators all over the globe and I’m delighted to have found new friends in Felipe and Dani, and very happy to welcome Collectivo Domista as FCN members. Bienvenida Domistas!
– Michaela French