Panel 1

Planting Imagination: Virtual reality for community co-design in Chinatown

Speaker: Linda Zhang

Academia didn't care if I was a good person, only if I could become a great artist. Dismantling problematic ideas taught to me by higher education.

Speaker: Olivia Shortt

Moderated by Trina Grover | 10:00 - 11:15 a.m.

Linda Zhang discusses how LibnPlanting Imagination, a group of Chinatown community organizations and academic researchers are using virtual reality (VR) to come up with new visions of the future of Chinatown and design a community garden at Cecil Community Centre in Chinatown. In the process they create a shared future for the neighbourhood together.

The project develops critical and innovative approaches to democratize emerging VR, augmented reality (AR), 3D scanning, and 3D reconstruction tools and resources for community knowledge production and mobilization, while addressing issues of equitable access and inclusion across the digital divide. This project promotes community resilience, stress reduction and stigma, and supports the affected groups in Chinatown through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as ongoing displacement. The project also aims to build virtual networks that strengthen cross-community solidarity through shared and therapeutic VR experiences that reimagine place, space, and community in relation to Canadian society.

 Olivia Shortt  discusses the importance of sound and music to the social aspects of art creation. They discuss their decolonial approach to composition and audio art. Based on their experience as a performer and a storyteller, as well as  the central importance of art to nation creation and reclamation of voice.