Pakistan's First Virtual Reality Art Festival Opens in Lahore

Pakistan's first festival dedicated to virtual and extended reality art, the VXR Festival, has opened at Alliance Française de Lahore. Titled "Between the Prompts // V.1," the event brings together 70 artists from Pakistan and several other countries, including France, Spain, Canada, and the United States.

The festival was curated by Dr Najamul Assar and Sarah Rajper, with Zainab Aamir as assistant curator. It is supported by the Embassy of France in Pakistan, Alliance Française de Lahore, Institut français, the Embassy of Spain in Pakistan, and AECID, in collaboration with UNESCO. The opening programme featured 16 artists, among them Adriaan Lokman, Amna Tariq, Anusha Khalid, Asma Kazmi, Che-Kuang Chuang, Jérémy Griffaud, Jill Miller, Lola Zoido, Manel Pascual Bafaluy, Mansoor Ali, Marie Lienhard, Marion Pédebernade, Nicolas Thépot, Pierre-Alain Pédebernade, Sana Akram, and Sandrine Deumier.

Unlike a conventional exhibition, the VXR Festival allows visitors to experience artworks through virtual reality headsets, screens, and augmented-reality technology. The theme "Between the Prompts" examines the relationship between human instructions and machine-generated visual output, and explores how artists are responding to algorithms and emerging technologies that increasingly shape image creation and digital content.

A meet-the-artists session was held during the opening, featuring AB Rehman, Anusha Khalid, Lola Zoido, Mansoor Ali, Marie Lienhard, and Sandrine Deumier. Several projects use immersive technology to reinterpret traditional art, cultural heritage, and storytelling. A major attraction is a Claude Monet virtual reality experience, presented in Pakistan for the first time through the Institut français collection, which takes visitors from Monet's garden in Giverny to his famous Water Lilies works at the Musée de l'Orangerie.

Pakistani artist Sana Akram's "Sun" adapts the Urdu Tilismi Dastan storytelling tradition into an immersive environment. The festival runs at Alliance Française de Lahore and is open to the public, offering a unique opportunity to engage with cutting-edge digital art.