New Philly Exhibit Puts Visitors Inside Refugee Camp
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A new 10,000 square-foot exhibit at Independence Mall puts visitors inside the virtual reality of refugee life.
Titled Forced From Home, the outdoor traveling exhibit is a reconstructed refugee camp that gives visitors a 360-degree immersive experience of life as a refugee.
"You come home from work in Syria and there's a crater where your house used to be, you have no choice, you have no home left," says Dr. Chip Hunter.
Hunter is a project coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, which organized the traveling exhibition. It tells the story of those displaced from six different countries- by having visitors assume their identities, choosing items to take, and then traveling to safety.
"We have a rubber boat similar to what people use to cross the Mediterranean, see what it's like to be put with 25 to 30 people and be in a tiny, little rubber boat and be in there for 20 days in the open ocean," explains Hunter.
The exhibit is free and runs November 5-13th.