About
Project information, contact, and documentation
How to Read This Site
A quick guide to navigating the learning resource and its interactive features.
ContactContact & Feedback
Get in touch with the project team, report issues, or provide feedback.
ReferenceHow to Cite
Citation formats for the learning resource and individual modules.
ReferenceVersion History
Changelog and version history.
LegalPrivacy Notice
How we collect, use, and protect your information (UK GDPR compliant).
AcknowledgementsCredits & Acknowledgements
Intellectual debts, project contributors, and provenance for this critique site.
DocumentationMethods & Ethics
Research methodology, ethical considerations, and limitations.
The Project
HashimaXR was a virtual reality project developed between 2020 and 2025, aiming to reconstruct life on Hashima (Gunkanjima)—Japan's contested UNESCO World Heritage site. The project was never released, not due to technical failure or historical inaccuracy, but because the conditions required for publication made critical interpretation effectively impossible.
This learning resource treats the project's non-release as a finding. The "archive of obstruction"—refusals, demands for "balance," procedural delays, and soft gatekeeping—becomes evidence of how heritage governance actually works.
The Team
The HashimaXR project was developed by an interdisciplinary team of historians, designers, and developers based in the United Kingdom and Japan.
This learning resource was created by Christopher Gerteis, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Japanese History at SOAS University of London.
Links
- The Hashima XR Project (main project site)
- SOAS Project Page
- Japanese Modernity @ Substack