Gouveia, Ana RaquelCarvalho, Isabel CristinaMaldonado, PauloOlivero, Lucas Fabian2026-02-272026-02-272025Gouveia, A. R., Carvalho, I.C., & Maldonado, P. (2025). Narrative Portals and Augmented Reality: Activating empathy in creative projects. In 12th International Conference on Digital and Interactive Arts: Media Art Cultures, Communities & Territories (ARTECH 2025), November 26–28, 2025, Braga, Portugal. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3773699.3773961http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/21568In an era marked by the increasing fragmentation of human relationships – where mechanisms of social and emotional connection often struggle to adapt to the acceleration of communicational technologies and digital ecosystems – Digital Media Art assumes a role of critical and sensitive mediation. The experimental and research-driven exploration of ways to reconfigure modes of being-with-others through technology fosters intersections between creative practices and other means, such as digital narrative and augmented reality, particularly given their immersive and interactive potential oriented toward ethical, social, and cultural concerns. These practices propose frameworks for listening, sharing and symbolic co-presence, where empathy is not conceived as a passive emotion, but as a relational process. This article offers a theoretical reflection on such frameworks, focusing on narrative portals activated through augmented reality, and analyses four contemporary international art projects (2021-2025) - Como Semillas en el Viento, Monumental Perspectives, Las Awichas and Augmented Landscapes of Empathy – which integrate technology and storytelling to cultivate affective and community-based connections. Through comparative analysis, this article aims to understand how these creative projects are situated within the field of Digital Media Art and how they configure spaces of relation and collective memory.engDigital Media ArtsAugmented RealityDigital NarrativeEmpathyCommunity Engagementconference proceedings10.1145/3773699.3773961