shARed spaces Community Outreach 2024

In the spring and summer of 2024, we worked with four communities and organizations: Chief Little Pine School in Little Pine First Nation; Future Artistic Minds at Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op in Saskatoon; White Buffalo Youth Lodge in Saskatoon; and The Ridge in Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation. We were happy to be welcomed into a range of contexts and to be able to work with a varied demographic. Participants included children, youth, adults, and Elders. Each community taught us different things that allowed us to shift our focus and adjust our approach through our conversations and interactions.

We worked in consultation with Elders and community when planning each outreach activity. Our goal was to work together to find connections between the technologies we were learning and the needs and interests of participants. We subsequently designed a series of workshops on video and sound recording and editing, 3D scanning, 3D modelling, and augmented reality.

To introduce participants to 3D technologies, we used plasticine in two of our workflows as a way to create a tactile relationship between three-dimensional shapes in real life and digital sculpting.  Participants subsequently scanned their plasticine models and later imported them into a 3D modelling program for further manipulation. These various outcomes were then brought into the AR presentation platforms: Adobe Aero, Hoverlay and the shARed spaces app. It was important to consider longevity of the tools and platforms and thus AR presentation methods other than shARed spaces were introduced as we are not able to guarantee the continued upkeep and development of our app, whereas Aero and Hoverlay are well-established and are expected to continue to exist and evolve. It was also a consideration for communities to continue working with these tools independently following our visits and thus apps were selected that we identified as accessible both in cost and useability.

We learned a lot about the technologies we were working with, the idiosyncrasies of apps, ongoing issues with compatibility of file types (even between the same format of accepted file types but output by different apps) and the challenges of finding reliable production pathways, which required us to pivot and troubleshoot on the fly. More information about each community visit is available under the Community Outreach menu.

During our conversations with communities, some of the needs and interests that were discussed included:  

• Large-scale scanning using drone footage to create 3D architectural maps of spaces and buildings.
• Creating an archive of scanned artifacts, culturally significant objects and/or artworks for the community, cultural space and/or online gallery.
• Recording Elders’ voices to preserve oral histories and languages and making recordings that would be created by, for and about community. For example, creating an archive of recordings of elders speaking in their Indigenous languages and/or creating AR markers at places in the community (or along a path) where one could listen to recorded stories told by local Elders.
• Using augmented reality (with audio, scans of artifacts or culturally significant objects, built 3D objects,  and/or photos and video) to commemorate historically significant sites. For example, recreating a residential school in 3D augmented reality and combining this digital form with meaningful audio from residential school survivors to mark the site as a memorial.
• AR and digital technologies in the classroom to inspire future goals. For example, introducing teachers and administrators to technologies they could use in their schools, classrooms and for community events; introducing children and youth to accessible technologies; using AR (scans of natural elements and specimens) in land-based learning; and using 3D modeling as a first step for 3D printing.