Our Home and Haunted Land
an exploration of space, memory and virtual reality
Nadine Valcin
Project Description
Our Home and Haunted Land: An Exploration of Space, Memory and Virtual Reality is a 10-minute linear virtual reality experience that examines the colonial histories embedded in the names of a number of Toronto spaces. It incorporates research-creation and decolonial methodologies to expose the violent legacy of the land with live on.
The project uses 3D photogrammetry scans of significant Toronto spaces rendered as point clouds as a starting point for the creation of virtual 3D environments. Through virtual reality, it immerses the participant and invites them to look at spaces that they commonly see in a different manner, to question what has been omitted or erased from communal memory. It is a reminder that the historical past still lingers and shapes the contemporary present.
BIO
Nadine Valcin is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist based in Toronto. She is currently the Archive/Counter Archive artist-in-residence at Library and Archives Canada. She has directed four documentary projects for the National Film Board of Canada, including the critically-acclaimed Black, Bold and Beautiful (1999) and Une école sans frontières (A School without Borders, 2008) and is currently developing a fifth project about the future of cities. Nadine has been awarded numerous grants and prizes including the OCADU Presidential scholarship, two Chalmers Arts Fellowships and a Drama Prize from the National Screen Institute. She holds a professional degree in architecture from McGill University and is an alumna of Doc Lab and Women in the Director’s Chair.