Definition: An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship.

Expatriate is a project that involved the creation of an interface that could provide its users with insight into the global refugee crises. By interacting with the interface, the user can learn about relevant issues such as displacement, migration, rescue efforts, direct provision, politics and public opinion.

The interface was built to resemble a conventional user checkout. The familiar design allows the interface to be intuitive in functionally while also creating a juxtaposition of lives between those who have been affected by the crises and others who live in safer parts of the world.

The group have collaborated with a range of people who include refugees, asylum seekers, Irish naval personal and general public opinion. This variety of media therefore allows the user to learn about the crises and its related issues from a range of different perspectives.

Each story is represented by a scannable object which is significant to a persons story, all of which have were hand picked or donated by the volunteers. Just like a self-checkout system, the user can scan each one of these objects to active its respective story which will then play on screen.

The system utilises RFID Technology which is controlled by an Arduino using the Arduino IDE Software and Processing 2.2.1, which is a data visualisation software. Placed under each tag with the Expatriate Logo is an RFID tag that gets read by the Reader. The Arduino then produces a code which is serial printed and read in Processing which determines the respective video being played.

When completed, the final interface was exhibited in the CIT Media Communications Exhibition, Sonder in the last week of May where it saw very intensive use during the show and throughout the following week where it was on display. It was well received by users which led us to conclude that this new disruptive way of raising awareness around contemporary issues was a successful proof of concept.

During the development of the project, we engaged in communications with both the Irish Refugee Council and the UN Refugee Agency. Both showed an interest in Expatriate so now that the project is finished, we hope that an interface like this could be used by NGO’s or charities as a new disruptive way of raising awareness around contemporary issues in public spaces some time in the near future.