CANADA
HANGING OUT PROJECT
Indigenous youth from various nations open the doors of their community and share their contemporary reality with you. Discover their unique voice and honesty thanks to 360-degree video. Let yourself be immersed in the places that are important to them. Increase your knowledge of their traditions and culture by witnessing testimonies and accessing archival documents grouped under 25 different themes.
Through its various segments – Encounter – Visit – Learn – the virtual exhibit Hanging Out offers a sensitive experience of the territory and culture of First Nations and Inuit. It offers direct and privileged access to the voices of members of these communities and specifically to young people, who are invited to describe and share their environment in the most natural way possible.
After choosing the location and how they want to be filmed, they address the camera directly, which captures the scene in 360 degrees, allowing them to highlight the setting that inspired them. Young people express themselves in their own words, with their expressions and accents, as if they are talking to a relative or friend and asking them to come and visit.
THE PROJECT
WHO?
The paricipants were Indigenous youth from most of the Quebec 11 First Nations and Inuit. The trainers were a technologist and animator from La Boîte Rouge VIF. The partners of the project were La Boîte Rouge VIF, the Virtual Museum of Canada, Musée des Abénakis, Native Montréal, Val-d’Or Native Friendship Centre, Musée Shaputuan and Avataq Cultural Institute.
WHERE?
Indigenous communities in Quebec, Canada.
WHEN?
The entire project spanned over 3 years, from 2016 to 2019. Most of the filming process took about 2 weeks in each visited community. Some additional data for the virtual exhibit were produced as part of an extensive consultation with First Nations and Inuit in the making of a permanent exhibition for a National Museum in Quebec.
WHY?
To build bridges between young people from the communities visited and those from other nations by exploring Hanging Out at school, in interpretation centres and museums or at home.
This intercultural mediation also aims to reach a wide audience in order to initiate or continue a real dialogue as part of a necessary and inspiring conversation.
WHAT?
Mainly, the project created 50 360-degree videos with the youth. These are presented as part of a virtual exhibit (website), grouped under 25 different themes, with information on each of these themes. 360-degree videos can be seen on a computer, a mobile phone or a tablet for increased direct interactivity or through a helmet for a more dynamic feeling of the space. Headphones are strongly suggested to experiment the spatial link to the video.
HOW?
The project involved scriptwriting and staging for the 360-degree recordings with the youth. Technological gear provides a spherical video clip with spatial sound allowing viewers to orient their perspective. Final outputs are uploaded on Youtube. The website was created using a collaborative approach, with specifications and design cues provided by Indigenous artists and the youth.
For additional information
On the project:
https://hangingout.ca/
On La Boîte Rouge VIF:
https://www.pulaval.com/produit/the-little-guidebook-on-the-extensiveconsultation-cultural-creation-and-transmission-by-and-with-communities
VR EXP
PROJECT | HANGING OUT
COUNTRY | CANADA
