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DEN Award for Streaming the Past project: 'A truly innovative way to engage with new audiences'

Back in 2021, the project Streaming the Past, an NWA funded project ran by Leiden University and the VALUE Foundation, launched to take a young audience back to the past through video games on the popular streaming platform Twitch. Now, the project is lauded with a DEN Award, issued by the organisation DEN, which aims to help the cultural sector with digital transformation.

Livestreaming science

Streaming the Past explores how researchers can share knowledge about the past via a new and unique form of science communication: livestreaming video games. In the past years, a diverse team of students and researchers produced Let’s Plays and Vodcasts for the immensely popular livestream platform Twitch, where they played video games set in, or themed around the past. 

The people of DEN were impressed with the project. So much so that they nominated it for the DEN Award. The DEN website: ‘Streaming the past is a courageous initiative that playfully engages gamers in heritage and scientists in gaming. We were impressed by the surprising use of this medium, games, to both have fun and have serious conversations about the past. A truly innovative way to engage new audiences and provide an experience.’

The DEN Award is received by the project's founders Aris Politopoulos and Angus Mol

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Group effort

One of the project’s members, Aris Politopoulos, emphasises the group effort. ‘This was essentially a collaborative project, with three students streaming, and academic and support staff offering their insights and know-how, everyone was involved with the common goal of talking about the past to a wider audience through fun and play.’

Streaming the Past was awarded the prize during the DEN conference on June 1st.

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