IM4 Immersive Knowledge Transfer Series – Episode 4
The IM4 lab, in collaboration with Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), invites you to attend the ‘IM4 XR Knowledge Gathering’, an exciting live webinar series. This webinar series features conversations among XR media creators, artists, and storytellers from Indigenous and culturally diverse communities.
Episode 4 will feature IM4 Matriarch Doreen Manuel, Amelia Winger-Bearskin, and Nancy Lee.
Doreen Manuel is the sixth child of Grand Chief Dr. George Manuel and Marceline Manuel. Doreen is a graduate of the Aboriginal Film and Television Diploma Program (AFTP) at Capilano University and now the Director of the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking Program at Capilano University. She has an extensive background working in First Nations education and community development in both rural and urban centers. Doreen comes from a long line of oral historians and factual storytellers from her First Nations traditional background. She is the recipient of the Governor General of Canada Medal Award for academic excellence for her studies in AFTP; and Women in Film & Television, Leadership in Education Award. She holds a MFA from the Film Department at UBC.
Amelia Winger-Bearskin is Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma, Deer Clan. Amelia is an artist/technologist who empowers people to leverage bleeding edge technology to effect positive change in the world. In 2019 she was an invited presenter to His Holiness Dalai Lama’s World Headquarters in Dharamsala for the Summit on Fostering Universal Ethics and Compassion. In 2018 she was awarded a McArthur and Sundance Institute fellowship for her 360 video immersive installation in collaboration with the artist Wendy Red Star (supported by the Google JUMP Creator program), exhibited at the Newark Museum and ASU in 2019. The non-profit she founded IDEA New Rochelle, in partnership with the New Rochelle Mayor’s Office, won the 2018 $1 Million Dollar Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge for their VR/AR Citizen toolkit to help the community co-design their city. She is a Sundance Institute Creative advisor and alum of their New Frontiers Story Lab and Festival(AR/VR/XR/AI tech section). In 2018 she was awarded the 100k Alternative Realities Prize for her Virtual Reality Project from Engadget and Verizon Media.
Nancy Lee is a Taiwanese-born interdisciplinary media artist, curator, filmmaker and cultural producer. Nancy is a co-producer and co-founder of CURRENT: Feminist Electronic Art Symposium, an intersectional and multidisciplinary initiative featuring artistic and educational programming for and by women, nonbinary artists and artists of colour. She co-created “Telepresence”, a VR 8-channel surround-sound live performance with Western Front, and “Tidal Traces”, an VR 360 dance film with the National Film Board of Canada. Currently, Nancy is collaborating with Kiran Bhumber on a speculative-sci fi exhibition exploring 3D scanning/printing, XR, and live performance, scheduled for 2021 at the Richmond Art Gallery.
Be sure to check out IM4 Lab’s Youtube channel for the DJ set featured in the live webinar.