‘This one is for home’: SA artist Rick Treweek celebrates Emmy win

South African artist and virtual worldbuilder Rick Treweek has celebrated a major international achievement after Uncanny Alley: A New Day won Outstanding Emerging Media Program at the 78th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.

The collaboration between Cape Town immersive studio Virtual Worlds Company and Los Angeles-based Ferryman Collective claimed the award at the Peacock Theater on Saturday, 5 September 2026.

Treweek, known in virtual reality as MetaRick, was in the audience and joined the Ferryman Collective team on stage to accept the Emmy.

“This one is for home,” says Treweek.

“South Africa does not wait for perfect conditions. We build under load-shedding skies and still send a city across the ocean.”

Inside the world of Uncanny Alley

Uncanny Alley: A New Day is an immersive theatre production performed live inside social VR platform VRChat.

It transports audiences into Uncanny Alley, an original cyberpunk universe created by Treweek.

Participants become escaped detainees fleeing Adaptive Learning Industries, a corporation preparing to erase its citizens’ memories.

Working alongside two professional actors portraying 15 characters in real time, participants have to escape imprisonment, evade capture and ultimately decide whether to leave Uncanny Alley behind or stay and fight for their home.

Audience choices influence the experience, meaning no two performances are ever exactly alike.

The production faced competition from Blumhouse Enhanced Cinema and The World of Fallout to claim the Emmy.

A South African connection in Los Angeles

For Treweek, the Emmy experience also delivered an unexpected connection to home.

The Kommetjie resident met Marcus Hebbelmann, another Deep South local who was part of Survivor’s Emmy-nominated camera team for the third consecutive year.

“The whole event was remarkable, especially the Governors Gala afterwards,” Treweek says.

“It was incredible just being in the room with so much talent and creativity.”

Despite the time difference, Treweek’s mother was the first person he called after the win.

“And then everyone in Kokstad knew,” he laughs.

An idea born during lockdown

The origins of Uncanny Alley stretch back to 2020, when Treweek was living in Johannesburg during South Africa’s strict initial COVID-19 lockdown.

Unable to gather with others, he imagined a virtual space where people could stand together again.

The universe’s first narrative experience, The Search for Gh0st, was selected for Venice VR Expanded in 2021 and won the Spirit of Raindance Award in 2022.

In 2024, Treweek and Ferryman Collective began developing a live theatrical experience within the universe.

Virtual Worlds Company subsequently built more than 30 new environments designed to run on standalone Meta Quest headsets, while Ferryman founders Stephen Butchko and Deirdre V. Lyons wrote and directed the production.

Uncanny Alley earns international recognition

Since its Venice Immersive 2024 premiere, Uncanny Alley: A New Day has toured major international festivals and collected further honours.

These include the XR Immersive Award at Kaohsiung Film Festival and Gold at the XRMust Awards.

The Emmy win adds another international accolade to that list.

It also capped a memorable week for Treweek, who was exhibiting Gh0st Out The Shell at Continuum ’26 in Saudi Arabia.

The work combines bronze sculpture and virtual reality to explore physical and virtual identity.

“I cast Gh0st in bronze for the exhibition, so she arrived in the real world at the same time she was up for awards at the Emmys, which is quite cool,” he says.

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