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Lisa Jackson’s interactive VR project Biidaaban screens in Toronto

Posted: 24 Aug 2018 09:53 AM PDT

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival has announced the Canadian premiere of interactive VR installation Biidiiban: First Light by Lisa Jackson (Featuring Aboriginal Stories Program, NSI IndigiDocs program advisor), co-presented by imagineNATIVE, NFB and the City of Toronto.

In Biidaaban, Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square is flooded. Its infrastructure has merged with the local fauna; mature trees grow through cracks in the sidewalks and vines cover south-facing walls. People commute via canoe and grow vegetables on skyscraper roofs. Urban life is thriving – and so are the languages of the Wendat, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Anishinaabe (Ojibway), this land’s first peoples.

‘Biidaaban’ is an Anishinaabemowin word meaing “the first light before dawn.” It also refers to the idea of the past and future collapsing in on the present. Biidaaban: First Light asks users to think about their place in history and their role in a possible future, as they move through a highly realistic Toronto reclaimed by nature.

Tickets are free and available from September 11 online or September 18 in person. The installation runs September 18 to 24 in Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall.

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