Where History and AR Collide

Kinfolk uses augmented reality to make Black and Brown narratives accessible to everyone in the world.

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Origin Story

In April of 2017, Kinfolk Foundation started as a collective of artists and activists who were focused on using immersive technology to challenge the inequitable distribution of monuments in NYC.
We began hosting teach-ins and performance protests throughout the city to advocate for the removal of racist statues including those of genocidal slaveholders such as Christopher Columbus. It was time for untold history to rise.
Our team felt that the public deserved to know about our country’s history that was left out of our textbooks and lesson plans, which meant that we needed to take action as soon as possible. In this decision, we created Kinfolk Foundation with the goal of using immersive technology such as augmented reality (AR) to not only educate the general public, but to also empower BIPOC students by including the narratives of the underrepresented in the American History Curriculum.

Kinfolk's Mission

Our mission is to uproot oppressive systems and reimagine public spaces through art, emerging tech, and storytelling.

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Our company roadmap

Movers and Shakers Foundation, the education-technology nonprofit that is changing the American education curriculum to include underrepresented narratives.

2023

Our products will be used in all 50 states

Our goal is not limited to NYC. Our goal is to implement these important histories nation-wide.

2021

Released Kinfolk and UNSUNG

Partnering with Netflix, we released our first version of Kinfolk with six AR monuments. Later the same year, we released our latest version of UNSUNG onto the Verizon learning platform, which is available to 1000+ schools across the country.

2019

Began working on UNSUNG

With $1.5 Million donated by Verizon, we were able to begin working on UNSUNG, a multiplayer learning experience where student's get to travel back in time to explore historical scenes from the life of unsung Black heroes, Florence Mills and Tiny Davis.

2017

Movers and Shakers Founded

We started in 2017, creating augmented reality experiences for activism and education. We created an AR installation centered on the true story of Christopher Columbus, and used that to campaign for the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in NYC.

Help us scale Kinfolk!

We are currently looking for thought leaders, community partners, and educators to collaborate with on our national Kinfolk plan over the next two years. If your core values align with our mission to catalyze change and movement toward racial equity and you would like to get involved, please fill out the form below. We look forward to hearing from you!

Get Involved

Events

Partner with us to throw a Kinfolk event in your city!

Teaching

Reach out if you would like to create curriculum or teach Kinfolk in your class

Donate

We are accepting donations to help us bring Kinfolk to communities across the country

Our Products

Bring history to life

With a smartphone, anyone has the ability to place an AR monument right in their own living room.

Web archive

Once in the application, you can access our web archive that serves as a tool to analyze primary and secondary source documents, providing contextual information about each icon.

Juneteenth Curriculum

Implement our Mini-Unit lesson plan into your classroom. The lesson is up to Common Core Standards, and available for use. If you’re interested, let us know! We would love your feedback.

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Multiplayer classroom experience

UNSUNG allows students to work together and build a sense of community in their classroom. This results in the students being more engaged in school and excited to learn.

Teacher Dashboard

Our teacher dashboard is a desktop portal where teachers can assign teams, keep track of real time student progress, and more.

Experiential Learning

Students will be immersed in the time-period of the figure they are learning about. UNSUNG encourages students to experience history first hand through AR on their mobile device.