Through the Petri Glass

✨⚡Stories Zapping SuperBugs!! ⚡✨

 I’m still buzzing from an electrifying two-day narrative arc with fellow artists and experts at “Through the Petri Glass” 🧫, a workshop I co-organized with the Global Strategy Lab and the Immersive Storytelling Lab, hosted by the Wellcome Trust in London.  

Creative types of every stripe came together to explore how to turn drug-resistant infections into irresistible stories that amplify the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) 🦠 on lives and livelihoods:

📚 Novelists brainstorming with 👩🏾‍⚖️ policy boffins!

✍️ Illustrators swapping sticky notes with 🔬 scientists!

🏛️ Curators collaborating with 👩🏽‍🎤 comic writers!

🎭 Dramatists vibing with 🕶️ AR artists!

We explored transforming invisible threats into indelible narratives that could literally save lives, and learned about the inspiring work participants are already doing – from uplifting performances in marketplaces and clinic waiting rooms in Uganda (Mercy Kukundakwe), to cutting-edge VR visualizing disease from the patient’s POV in the UK (Sarah Ticho), to super-cute cartoons illustrating the cultural context of AMR in Thailand (Kanpong Boonthaworn), to radio dramas and graphic novels imagining an antibiotic apocalypse in a not-too-distant future (Val McDermid and Sara Kenney).

A few brave social scientists joined us, engaging with and enriching the creative process: thanks to Director of the Global Strategy Lab Mathieu JP Poirier, strategic comms master-chief Demetria Tsoutouras, policy wizard Isaac Weldon, and stalwart research assistant Uswa Shafaque for taking the time to participate.

Massive respect and thanks to all the artists and allied visionaries who made this confab such a roaring success: Becky McCall, Emily Scott-Dearing, Kanpong Boonthaworn, Lisa Jamieson, Liz Callegari, Lucinda Jarrett, Madhushree Kamak, Mercy Kukundakwe, Sara Kenney, Sarah Ticho, Sheldon Paquin, and Val McDermid.

Props to the mad live-scribing skills of We Are Cognitive's Patience Rose Nottingham, Elena Gamper and Alex Gilmore.

Deep gratitude to our hosts at Wellcome and the team there who paved the way and/or joined us on the day: Steven Hoffman, Layla Fazal Deverson, Addie Tadesse, Danielle Olsen, Madeleine Weaver, Janet Midega, Rebecca Manaley, Sian Bird, and Sumitra Upham.

But most of all, huge thanks to our fearless leader Caitlin Fisher, Director of the Immersive Storytelling Lab at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, for nursing the germ of this idea into full-blown, mind-expanding reality.

See below for the event's culminating webinar, "The Power of Art & Storytelling in Tackling AMR: Raising Awareness & Sparking Action."

 

More photos after the jump...

Future Makers Week

Update Oct 10: Here's the event recording! My Shadowpox talk starts at the 10:25 mark, followed by Dave Evans speaking about The Vale: Shadow of the Crown (no shortage of shadows here!), then we both sit down with host Victoria Evans for a panel discussion and Q&A from 43:30. 

(Love that YouTube's flagged the video with a Health Canada COVID-19 vaccine link: "When you search or watch videos related to topics prone to misinformation, such as the moon landing, you may see an information panel...." Fact-checkers are go!)

________

I'm excited to be speaking about Shadowpox this Thursday, October 10th, on a panel titled "Fusing Gameplay & Healthcare," led byUHN's KITE Creates as part of their mission to "build bridges between innovators in healthcare and creative industries." 

Victoria Evans will be hosting, and David Evans will be presenting on The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, an audio-only video game that won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Video Game Narrative.

The event is presented by Future Makers, "an ever-evolving initiative dedicated to fostering curiosity, dialogue, experimentation, and innovation at the intersection of creativity and technology." Co-created and led by The Creative School at TMU and the City of Toronto's Creative Technology office, Future Makers "empowers the creative community through education, collaboration, mentorship, and thought-provoking conversations to shape the future of the entertainment industry."

Click here to book, and come say hi to Shadowpox technical director Lalaine Ulit-Destajo and me at the booth afterward! 

Doctored!

It feels like I'm still catching my breath, but on Thursday afternoon around 5:00pm, I finally crossed the finish line. I'm officially a doc!

Below is the pre-ceremony group portrait of all the PhD graduands from the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, hoods draped over arms, and already sweltering in our robes. Respect to my lovely and talented cohort-mate Caroline Klimek (front and centre) – I'm not sure I could have made it to the other side of the stage in those heels.

My inspiring doctoral supervisor Caitlin Fisher generously shared the hooding ritual with my aunt Patricia Stamp, a retired professor of African and Development Studies at York, and a lifelong guiding light for me:

Managed to keep that extremely wide-brimmed puffy hat on my head throughout. Harder than it looks!

It was an honour to receive the Governor General’s Gold Medal from Chancellor Kathleen Taylor – one I share with all the colleagues and participants across the world who joined a strange, wonderful adventure in research-creation and artful intelligence.

I love the symbolism of the heraldic elements of Governor General Mary Simon's coat of arms:

Shadowcasting at Wiky High

Following an inspiring visit in October to Wiikwemkoong High School on Manitoulin Island, I was delighted to return last week for a five-day Shadowpox workshop.

Wiikwemkoong (formerly Wikwemikong) High School flies with the eagles

A dramatic entrance

Teacher Natalie Parrington's brilliant grade 12 English class welcomed Debajehmujig Storytellers directors Joahnna Berti and Bruce Naokwegijig, along with arts animators Daniel Recollet-Mejaki, Quinten Kaboni and Tyler Pangowish, all of whom have collaborated on previous Shadowpox workshops in 2018 and 2022.

With Joahnna Berti and Natalie Parrington in front of a Shadowpox vocabulary list (a good lesson for me in readability levels!)

We were piloting a new branching narrative, Shadowcasting • Mazinaateshin. "Mazinaateshin" is an Anishinaabemowin word that means both “s/he casts a shadow” and “s/he is on television or in a movie,” and echoes the traditional teachings shared by Debajehmujig Knowledge Keeper David "Sunny" Osawabine that we should have compassion for everything and everyone our shadow falls upon. 

The four-scene cycle of Shadowcasting • Mazinaateshin 

This new version of the participatory story framework Shadowpox: The Cytokine Storm takes the form of a choose your own adventure branching narrative, in order to foreground the theme of choice and the effects our choices can have on our own lives and the lives of those around us.

The new Shadowcasting • Mazinaateshin branching narrative 

Students role-played as volunteers in a Phase 1 vaccine trial in the middle of a shadowpox pandemic (a scenario that required a lot more imaginative heavy lifting in Debaj's first workshop back in 2018!). The school's wonderful IT wizard Rudy Mandamin helped set the students up to use Microsoft Stream to record their in-character video journal entries, which would then be embedded in branching narratives using the open-source software Twine.

On screen: Natalie Parrington using Microsoft Stream

We also got to try out a new augmented reality effect I'm half-seriously thinking of calling a "projectro-glyph" (a petroglyph projected on the body). This attenuated vaccine shadowpox glyph was coded in 8th Wall by Shadowpox technical director Lalaine Ulit-Destajo, with the support of the Immersive Storytelling Lab and a Canada Council Digital Greenhouse Grant. Check it out yourself on 8th Wall!

Modeling the new augmented reality Shadowpox effect

Debaj animators Tyler Pangowish and an augmented Quinten Kaboni 

Gchi miigwech, huge thanks, to our hosts at Wiky High and the directors and animators at Debajehmujig, but especially to our multi-talented student workshop participants. I can't wait to see what they do next with all their creativity, intelligence and insight!

I'm also thrilled that Joahnna Berti and I ended the week in discussions with Natalie Parrington and science and technology teacher Chris Mara around a new project for next year, using "citizen science fiction" to explore the energy transition. Stay tuned...

Baa-maa-pii to the electrifying Wikwemikong Warriors!