Lanterns, Sculpture
"Lanterns of Light and Language" unites neighbours through lantern-making, fostering a shared sense of belonging in the community. Lanterns embody the intersection of folklore, stories, and riddles, serving as a backdrop for family and community reunions, as well as the forging of new friendships.This project introduces authentic Chinese ink/brush strokes to create a montage of brush paintings for the communal lantern. Pickle form frames are introduced from various natural or upcycling sources, transformed by community members into fishes or birds, tying into the theme of the upcoming Year of the Dragon, the animal of transformation.
In addition to the theme of "Language and Light," the artist's work is influenced by elements such as the dragon boat, rain, and the storytelling of the last zodiac animal, the rabbit. Through these elements, the viewers are invited to delve into the cultural tapestry that informs the creative journey.The artist hopes that the work resonates with viewers, evoking a sense of wonder, nostalgia, reflection, dialogue and a renewed appreciation for the power of community and shared experiences.

ANN K. CHOU

Projection Art
In The Glow of Two-Thousand Moons, Briard placed three analog slide projectors inside monolithic plinths. The projectors cycle through a series of 240 slides, all images of the clear, daylit sky shot by Briard using colourful cinema gels (transparent, tinted material used to create lighting effects in film). Working with seven shades of gels, Briard mixed and layered them to create countless variations and tones, a nod to the fact that just three colours combine to create the limitless spectrum of hues we see. The plinths create an overlapping, circular projection reminiscent of the theater of the heavens, constantly shifting and cycling through a predetermined rhythm. Briard asks us to consider how our own perception could be seen to act as another gel, or filter, shading our vision and altering reality. The cyclical projection also evokes the stages of the moon, itself a blank canvas coloured by human subjectivity. Fittingly, while we perceive the moon to be white, it actually shifts in colour depending on the circumstances through which we perceive it, such as atmospheric elements and telescope positioning.
— excerpted from text by Meredyth Cole and Genevieve Michaels commissioned by Burrard Arts Foundation

ANNIE BRIARD

BRETT GAYLOR (HOLOLABS)

Projection Mapping, Augmented Reality
You are walking along Store street and notice something different about the old Volvo garage. Are those…mushrooms growing in the window? You and your friends get closer and notice a QR code to scan on your phone. You’re asked to join Team Grow or Team Glow - which will you choose? Together, you can make a hidden world come to life with Glowshrooms!

BRIANNA BEAR

Printed Vinyl
Brianna was first introduced to dandelions when she was a little girl playing in the yard, using the flower as yellow blush on her cheeks. Since then, Brianna has learned dandelion is more than just a weed that many people know it as. Dandelion is a nutritious plant that can be used in different ways such as teas and salad greens.

Vinyl on substrate + AR
Caitlin McDonagh is a visual artist who currently resides in Victoria, BC. She creates intricate illustrative works that are inspired by folklore, symbolism, and the balancing of human versus natural worlds. The themes of connection, self-cultivation, growth, loss, and renewal are prevalent ideas that are woven into the worlds that she creates. Her goal with her work is to build her folklore; work that leaves doors open within it, allowing the viewer to add to the stories, create their own imagined landscapes, and find parts of themselves within this imagery.
You can find Caitlin’s mural work across Canada and the US. Her paintings are part of the City of Burnaby Permanent Art Collection at the Burnaby Art Gallery and part of numerous private collections around the world. This is her first AR artwork.

CAITLIN McDONAGH

Lights

Over the past 150 years, Vancouver’s vision of who it was, did not include us. Because Coast Salish weaving patterns reflect the land we are on, everyone who is here today can connect to the patterns and be invited into the vision of the identity of this place. The patterns can help the people of Vancouver get a sense of where they are, and who the people are that have been here for thousands of years. The patterns projected on the buildings in Lighting The Way are inspired by patterns on our blankets. These blankets encompass everything that we are as humans. We use them in all our communities: Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil Waututh, Tsawwassen, Kwantlen, Coquitlam, Comox, the interior and down to the States. This is a calling. I won't stop doing what I am doing until I wrap the City in our patterns.

DEBRA SPARROW

Augmented Reality
In collaboration with Nathan Creighton-Kelly, 2022
Can You Hear Them? is inspired by the history of lək̓ʷəŋən Lekwungen territory. This piece speaks more specifically to the many waterways – creeks, bogs, streams, marches - that used to meander across the south of Vancouver Island. The First People of the land – the lək̓ʷəŋən Lekwungen Speaking People - navigated these waters in dugout canoes. These water passages were particularly useful during the winter months when the high tides and surging waves made it dangerous to travel along the exposed south coast.
Most of the traditional waterways have been drained, covered or built over. One of them, named the Empress Creek by the colonists, flowed from the wetlands where Cook Street Village currently stands, connecting the inner harbour to Ross Bay. In 1904, the construction of the Empress Hotel began. Wetlands were drained and the Empress Creek was culverted. The Empress Creek still runs through the sub-basement of the Empress Hotel today.
Some streams are still alive under the layers of asphalt and concrete. Several of them flow throughout the city, even if now they are hidden from sight.
Can you hear them?

FRANCE TRÉPANIER

Text Art
Asking for a Friend… is a new temporary public artwork that asks a series of questions that echo the kinds of internal monologues we carry with us throughout our daily lives and social interactions. The text aims to provide a brief catalyst for self-exploration, with questions that feel both universal and yet highly personal through our individual engagement with them. The two-sided sign on which the work is mounted can be read in a loop and viewed from either side, with the questions quietly inviting our hopes, anxieties, dreams, and ruminations into public space. The work aims not to provide answers but to provoke a fleeting thought, or a moment of deeper reflection, amongst the often-isolating busyness of everyday life. Asking for a Friend...serves as a reminder of just how much we share in common, in public.

JUSTIN LANGLOIS

Augmented Reality

In this work, Craig uses collage alongside speculative narrative and BC Black history to activate bricks on Government Street used to commemorate some of BC’s first Black colonists. Viewers will be able to click on different points on the image to hear a short story about the lives of these individuals or families. In the act of remembering and/or documenting histories, how do the stories that are told and the ones that are erased shape current, daily acts of narrative building?
Augmented Reality, Projection, Immersive Art
Afroquatics: A Call and Response Below Surface is an immersive and interactive installation that will spark conversations, challenge perceptions, and transport viewers into an experiential underwater landscape. This installation pulls inspiration from African spiritual practices of Orisha, the little-known history of expert free divers that existed throughout coastal communities in West Africa, and underwater worlds imagined by many artists and storytellers of the African diaspora such as electronic music duo Drexciya.
Through curiosity and contemplation participants will be introduced to the intersection of ancient wisdom, modern technology, and speculative narratives. By reimagining the stories of the past, we can craft empowering understandings that heal our present and move into our futures.

KEMI CRAIG

Led Screens, Risers
The threshold of a window acts as a border between inside and outside, here and there, light and dark. But, as we experienced during recent periods of social isolation, the window can be redefined as a space for connection – a language of presence, a nearness felt.
Night Comes On is a video installation comprised of sixty 8” LED screens housed in and among ninety-nine black wooden boxes. Each individual screen contains a looping video of human presence captured within the confines of a domestic window frame. The figures moving around are backlit by interior lights and appear as small, unidentifiable silhouettes – no one in particular or anyone. Each video offers a glimpse of presence through the articulation of light and movement, a pulsating courtyard. An implied engagement takes place from across the boundaries of the window as figures peer out at each other, and at the viewer. Our collective human desire for connection is felt from across the threshold that separates us.

LAURA DUTTON

Projection, Soundscape, Immersive Art
Green Gazing is a participatory movement exchange led by instructor Ashley Bowa with projection visuals and audio manipulated by both artists Bowa and Lesley Marshall. In a room filled with plants and surrounded by screens, electronic impulse sensors are hooked up to the plants which connect to the projections and the audio. From this data, a meditation and movement practice is led by Bowa (like a yoga class) providing reflexive commentary and questions on current events and wellness spaces. An immersive multimedia participatory movement exchange using sound, image and botanicals, this experience is for everyone including families. The ambient electronic sound and videoscape becomes a co-creation between plant, participant, and artist. An accompanying zine "Green Gazing Victoria" explains the technology, gives tips on your house plants, and introduces you to local underrepresented ecologists.

LESLEY MARSHALL & ASHLEY BOWA

Augmented Reality
This piece is part of the Flux Gallery’s Revealing Presence Augmented Reality project. Revealing Presence aims to make visible the stories and histories of peoples and events from the past, which continue to affect our relationships to the land and to each other. Five artists – Kemi Craig, Lindsay Delaronde, Colton Hash, Eli Hirtle and France Trépanier – have created works at specific locations, revealing the stories and unheard voices of these places. Three of these works, by Kemi Craig, Lindsay Delaronde, and France Trépanier, have been adapted into Spark AR as part of the Winter Arts Festival.

LINDSAY DELARONDE

Text on Window Glass
Linnea Jericho Watts was a Nisga'a, Tsimshian, and Kwakwaka'wakw writer, orator, and advocate with a special interest in healing through art. Through her many contributions to community, she worked to empower others to share their own stories and gifts. Linnea passed away in December 2023.
This poem was originally commissioned by the Victoria Arts Council in 2022 and at that time Linnea said she was inspired by something her late father, Beau Dick, would say.

LINNEA JERICHO WATTS (ESTATE OF)

Sculpture, Interactive Sound
From the strange minds of the mostly-harmless-mad-scientists of Monkey C Interactive, experience the collection of nearly a dozen new and old wonderfully playful music-and-light-making machines and sculptures. Musical cash registers, mutant pump organs, hundreds of knobs and dials and chunky buttons in a post-apocalyptic arcade.

MONKEY C INTERACTIVE

Performance, Projection, Immersive Art
MOVE37XR is a dynamic non-profit creative studio and emerging media research lab committed to crafting compelling transformative experiences that unite immersive art, cutting-edge technology, and our shared human experience. With a mission to spark profound insights and empathic shifts in hearts and minds, MOVE37XR collaborates with a growing global network of XR studios, artists, engineers, academics, and researchers. Together, they explore art, technology, ecology, and consciousness, aiming to inspire positive transformation and deep connection toward wellness in personal and planetary health.
Their programs include pioneering XR tech, promoting creativity and collaboration, showcasing XR art, building a collaborative global network of intention aligned XR Studios, and supporting XR artists in their development toward using art and technology to inspire Planetary Health.

MOVE37XR

Neon
(S)CARE is a new neon piece, that stems from a previous project, Carry Yourself which were tote bags that read the text SCARE on one side and CARE on the other, presented and distributed to the public by the Vancouver Biennale in 2019 during an artist residency program. The basis of the original project was a comment on precarity and fearfulness and how people generally carry themselves in public, and how they act toward others in a downtown setting. The new neon would provide an unexpected encounter in public space.
Nathalie Quagliotto's work disrupts conventional notions of behaviour in the public space context and asks the public to question and reconsider their actions through humour and disruptive situations. Nathalie’s conceptual and sculptural practice involves reconfiguring everyday objects that are associated with disuse, strict social regulations, safety, and risk. She focuses on doubled proximity, placement, and colour to the point where she disrupts and alters the significance and usage of the object. Nathalie utilises the colour “Safety Yellow” in her work for its public meaning of caution, awareness, and attention.

NATHALIE QUAGLIOTTO

Digital Screens, Soundscape, Immersive Art
GO FISH is a moving painting, a kaleidoscopic and immersive sound and video installation splashed across three adjacent screens. It is set inside the annual natural phenomenon known as the Pacific herring migration, when hundreds of millions of herring return to the Salish Sea to spawn, chased by hungry birds, mammals, and the fishing fleet who hunt them.
There are no interviews and no narration. Filmed underwater, topside and from the air, GO FISH envelops the viewer in the natural wonder of this annual spectacle. The story becomes a kaleidoscope of images and sound, framing the familiar with an unfamiliar frame.
GO FISH seeks to bring a curious lens to capture the poetry and complexity of one of the greatest shows on earth.
Duration: 14 mins, loop

NETTIE WILD & SCOTT SMITH

Immersive Art
My Mother Always Told Me is an index of the colour red found throughout Victoria’s Chinatown, located on the homelands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Peoples. The project takes the form of an interactive brochure and window display located in Market Square. This brochure prompts a guided walk informed by the red hues identified throughout the neighbourhood. Using historical, personal, and fictional annotations, the project unveils new sensory experiences and stories about Chinatown’s historic alleyways and streets.

PHOEBE KE XIN BEI & STEPHANIE GAGNE

Projection Art
M()N()print is a generative printmaking approach to using computation, rule-based systems, and randomness as an abstract process.
Monoprinting is a printmaking method intended to make unique prints, exploring an image serially. A common type of monoprinting is called a monotype, which a non-absorbent matrix is drawn or painted on, then transferred to a final surface such as paper. This printmaking process inspired M()N()print, a computational printmaking system built to generatively paint+print pixels via matrix impression.
The M()N()print system started with a dataset (colour field/geometric reference images) produced by machine learning (AI) models that act as the initial pigments to prime the system. M()N()print scans the dataset, makes a randomised selection of pixels/pigments based on a set of rules, then prints these on top of the previous layer. Next, the system moves and distorts these pixel-based pigments, interacting with the previous layer in a distinct manner before finalising the print and moving on to the next layer.

RYAN THOMPSON

Augmented Reality
This mural is a depiction of the profound cultural heritage and historical significance of Canada’s oldest Chinese temple, Tam Kung Temple, which was established in the 1860s. The artwork captures the ethereal essence of Tam Kung (‘Lord Tam’) or Tam Tai Sin (譚大仙), a sea deity worshipped traditionally by the Hakka people of China.
Surrounding Tam Kung, the artwork unveils the vibrant cultural artefacts within the temple. The original banners invoke prosperity and good fortune and echo a spirit of celebration. Guarding the temple's entrance, the statues of the mighty dragon and the regal phoenix stand as sentinels of protection. An ornate altar takes centre stage and is typically adorned with offerings and surrounded by devotees performing the age-old incense ritual along with the drum and bell. In the corners, citrus trees sway gracefully, warding off malevolent spirits with their vibrant fruits and fragrant blossoms.
The mural honours the deep-rooted cultural and historical significance of Tam Kung, inviting all who gaze upon this artwork to embrace a sense of wonder. May this mural serve as a beacon of cultural appreciation and celebrate the legacy of Tam Kung.

SEERORO (CAROLYN WONG)

Vinyl on Window Glass
Spark Indigenous is an augmented reality (AR) creator accelerator program created and led by Slow Studies Creative and in partnership with Meta. Through this program we merge the richness of our traditions with the limitless potential of XR technology. This dynamic Indigenous-led program aims to empower Indigenous creators, to learn how to seamlessly integrate interactive AR experiences into their diverse artistic practices.
Through Meta Spark Studio, an accessible and powerful AR design toolkit, these visionary artists crafted immersive experiences that transcend physical boundaries, captivating a global audience across social platforms. By amplifying our voices and stories, we unveil a tapestry of cultural heritage, story and expression that reaches far and wide.
Through shared ideas and collective inspiration, we explore how AR can contribute to social movements or help breathe life into meaningful causes. Our mission is to ensure that our cultural legacies are cherished not only within our communities but from anywhere in the world. By transcending the limitations of physical gallery spaces, we've opened up new possibilities for art to be accessible and interactive, reaching a global audience through digital platforms.

SPARK INDIGENOUS

Projection, Soundscape, Immersive Art
Nüshu: Echo Chambers is a commemorative work on Nüshu, a writing script invented by and circulated amongst women in a small region in Hunan Province, China. The origin of the script cannot be ascertained and it had fallen into obsolescence in the twentieth century.
Using 3D animation technology, Yam constructed two tomb-like architectural chambers to amplify Nüshu songs. Above them floats a ceiling composed of Nüshu characters (written in calligraphy by living practitioners). The character/lattice ceilings are animated to hover and revolve above the chambers. A light source is projected through the lattice, casting Nüshu characters as moving shadows into the dark chambers.
For the audio component, each chamber is assigned a unique Nüshu song performed by a living practitioner. The character shadows are the lyrics, performing an illusory libretto. The use of the echo effect reverberates within the vacant chambers, creating an immersive soundscape of echoes. The visual, audio, and architectural elements are orchestrated to create a contemporary enunciation of Nüshu, one that is pneumonic, mysterious, feminine, and gentle.