Unframed Collection partners with NUMIX Lab, an itinerant European event that brings together immersive creation professionals in dialogue with cultural institutions across the continent. The 6th edition in 2025 brought together 459 participants from around the world across 16 venues in Budapest, Veszprém, Vienna, and Linz, fostering exchanges between Europe and North America around immersive cultural practices.
On this occasion, we met Laetitia Bochud, director and producer at Narrative and a key figure within the Swiss immersive ecosystem through her long-standing involvement with Virtual Switzerland.
In this interview, she reflects on the gradual structuring of XR in Switzerland, the importance of building connections between stakeholders, and a demanding vision of immersion rooted in storytelling and audience engagement.
What we have built above all is a network. Connecting the right people with the right projects. It may sound simple, but it requires a deep understanding of skills, dynamics, and complementarities.
— Laetitia Bochud
To begin, could you briefly introduce Virtual Switzerland and Narrative Studio, and explain your role within each organisation?
Laetitia Bochud. – Virtual Switzerland was created as a unique national initiative in Switzerland, supported by Innosuisse, with the ambition of promoting immersive technologies across all sectors. At the beginning, it was truly about “research-based innovation”: building bridges between research and concrete societal applications.
Very quickly, studios, artists, and creators who were not coming from the gaming industry — which was already more structured – approached us. An entire cultural and narrative scene, sometimes non-interactive, was not represented. So we started supporting this emerging ecosystem.
Now, almost ten years later, we realize how long these technologies take to truly settle in. There was the first VR hype, then the metaverse wave, and now AI is taking over. Yet only now are real use cases beginning to structure themselves sustainably.
Alongside this, I continued developing Virtual Switzerland independently, which eventually led me to join Narrative.
Narrative Studio is a business unit of Point Prod Actua, one of the leading audiovisual production companies in French-speaking Switzerland. The entity already existed, notably around museum and scenographic projects, but without such a clearly defined immersive direction.
Today, we co-direct the studio with complementary profiles spanning scenography, advertising, and immersive creation, allowing us to cross perspectives and maintain very high standards in terms of artistic and technical quality.
Virtual Switzerland has become a central hub for XR innovation in Switzerland. How would you describe its mission today, and what impact has the organisation had on the Swiss immersive ecosystem since you took the lead in 2017?
L. B. – What we have built above all is a network. Connecting the right people with the right projects may sound straightforward, but it requires a precise understanding of expertise, dynamics, and complementarities.
I have worked extensively on creating consortiums between academic, industrial, and creative actors. It is essential work, although often invisible.
We have also played an important role in raising awareness among institutions. For instance, we were invited to present immersive technologies before the Swiss parliament, showcasing projects by Swiss artists to demonstrate the diversity of these practices.
There is still a significant lack of understanding. Immersive media is often reduced to gaming, whereas in reality it is much closer to cinema, documentary filmmaking, or animation.
Virtual Switzerland frequently supports emerging immersive projects and encourages collaboration between academia, industry, and culture. What types of XR initiatives do you currently see emerging most strongly in Switzerland?
L. B. – We are seeing a strong emergence of projects related to heritage and history.
Many institutions and territories come to us with sites, stories, or remains they want to preserve, reconstruct, or reinterpret through immersive technologies. Immersion is becoming a real transmission tool.
There is also a strong need for internationalization. In Switzerland, it is impossible to remain at a purely local scale. We need to work through networks and collaborations that extend beyond borders.
As co-director of Narrative Studio, you work directly with museums and cultural institutions. Could you explain the studio’s approach to immersive storytelling and the way you integrate technology into curatorial or educational objectives?
L. B. – Our approach is highly pragmatic. We always begin by asking: who are we speaking to, and what do we want to transmit?
We create experiences with different levels of interpretation depending on audiences. Children, teenagers, and adults do not engage with content in the same way.
Immersion is never an end in itself. It can be technological, but also sonic, scenographic, or sensory. What matters to us is the coherence of the narrative and the ability to create a memorable experience. We want visitors to leave with something meaningful.
With your dual perspective — supporting the national XR ecosystem while producing projects through Narrative Studio — what do you see as the main challenges creators face today when developing cultural or artistic XR experiences?
L. B. – The main challenge remains funding.In Switzerland, contrary to common assumptions, resources are not that easily accessible, particularly because immersive technologies are still not fully recognized as part of the audiovisual field.
There is also a major lack of understanding at every level. Many decision-makers do not truly know what immersive media is, nor how it can be integrated into cultural strategies.
This sometimes leads to inappropriate decisions or to institutions turning toward foreign actors simply because they are unaware of local expertise. There is therefore an important ongoing effort around awareness and recognition.
Looking ahead, what directions or formats do you think will emerge within immersive storytelling in Switzerland? Are there particular opportunities you identify for museums, heritage sites, or cultural organisations?
L. B. – There are enormous opportunities. Heritage, local stories, and cultural identities provide incredibly rich ground for immersive experiences. Personally, I am very sensitive to these narrative forms rooted in territories and traditions.
But the key challenge is also openness: continuing to travel, explore, collaborate, and confront different practices. It is through exchange and circulation that these forms truly evolve.
Discover more interviews with curators and programmers on our blog.