This week we spoke to Jamila Kabir, an Immersive Technician from east London about supporting storytellers with Virtual Reality, 360 degree film, and her own storytelling. The interview comes as we celebrate three years of the UCL East London Scholarship
What is your role and what does it involve? What impact do you hope to make?
I’m an Immersive Technician supporting the Immersive Factual Storytelling MA within Public Anthropology. My role sits between creative experimentation and technical production, helping students turn ideas into spatial, interactive, and embodied experiences, whether that’s through VR, 360 film, or spatial sound.
Part of what I do is make the technology feel accessible. Immersive tools can be intimidating, especially for storytellers coming from anthropology, documentary, performance, or fine art backgrounds. I help bridge the gap between ideas and execution, supporting workflows and troubleshooting the technical challenges that inevitably come up during production.
How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?
I’ve been in the Immersive Technician role for six months. Before that, I was at UCL as a student, so my relationship with the university predates this position! Moving from student to staff has given me a layered perspective on the course. I understand both the creative ambitions students bring with them and the structural support they need to realise those ideas.
During my time as a student, I was a recipient of the East London Scholarship. That support was transformative and allowed me to fully engage with the course. It gave me freedom to experiment and develop ambitious projects, take risks, collaborate across disciplines, and build a strong professional network - all’of which shaped the foundation of my practice today.
Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your todo list.
I am currently working with Creative Experience Lab London - a collaborative hub launched by UCL and Loughborough University London at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that brings together researchers, cultural organisations, and industry partners to prototype and pilot immersive projects. I am supporting the technical delivery of immersive tools and workflows, working with researchers and the creative collaborators involved.
Alongside this, I’m continuing research into how immersive projects can act as tools for community knowledge sharing and cultural storytelling. Building from an earlier project, Mother Tongue, which explored language preservation, I’m exploring how immersive and interactive media can make forms of information that are often locked in academic, intimidating, or inaccessible formats - such as linguistic nuance, oral histories, and embodied cultural knowledge, more directly available and meaningful for the communities they concern. The aim is to design experiences that allow people to step into and interact with their own stories in ways that feel lived, participatory and impactful.
What makes you most proud of your work so far?
What makes me most proud of my work so far is that it has always felt close to me. The stories I choose to tell are not distant subjects, they really sit at the root. I’ve always believed that stories are most powerful, and most authentic, when they come from that place.
I’m also proud that my practice has grown and continues to grow as the industry itself evolves. Immersive storytelling and interactive media are constantly changing, and that keeps me learning and pushing myself. Even though I’m relatively new to this space, it’s exciting to see how much there is to explore and how my skills and ideas can keep developing as I go.
Looking forward, I’m excited by the idea of contributing to the next wave of "firsts." I work in an area that is still evolving and still being defined. There’s room to experiment, to question formats, to rethink who stories are for and how they’re accessed.
What are you most excited about in 2026, UCL’s bicentennial year?
What excites me about 2026 is being part of an institution that has a track record of disrupting the norm. UCL was the first university in England to admit women on equal terms, and as the first woman in my family to go to university, that legacy feels somewhat personal.
I think a lot about the students in the past who didn’t necessarily see themselves reflected in academia but came anyway, who pushed into spaces that weren’t built with them in mind. That kind of disruption and determination really resonates with me.
What’s a small habit or ritual that helps you stay grounded at work?
If I’ve been working on something for a while, I get tunnel vision. As someone with ADHD, stepping away from the screen, even just for five minutes, makes a difference. I’ll go and make a cup of tea - sometimes on my own, sometimes with whoever’s around, and that short pause resets my brain and brings me back into my body a bit.
Who would be your dream dinner guests?
I’d love to sit down with the women in my family, the ones I know, the ones I’ve shared stories and little rituals with, and the ones I never got to meet, from generations above me. I’d like to hear their stories and understand how their choices, challenges and experiences shaped them, and in turn, shaped me. I think about how much of who I am is connected to the resilience, creativity, and wisdom of the women who came before me.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Trust your instincts and don’t be afraid to take up space.
What’s one thing most people don’t know about your life outside of work?
I come from a painting background and it’s one of the ways I love to express myself. I use it to experiment, play, and explore ideas in a very personal, hands-on way.
Where do you go (physically or mentally) when you need to recharge? What’s your favourite place?
When I need to recharge, I go somewhere I can be near or submerged in water! That feeling of being fully present, disconnected from the usual pull of work or thoughts, is incredibly grounding and restorative.
Is there a joke that always makes you laugh or smile?
I have to credit my colleague James for this because it’s fully lodged in my brain now and I genuinely can’t think of another: Two cats swam the English Channel. They were called Four Three Two and Un Deux Trois. Which cat won? ...Un Deux Trois cat sank, so Four Three Two won.
Do you have any links to your social channels that you’d like to share?
You can , under ’Jamila Kabir’. I have a portfolio you can view on jamilakabir.com.
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