Where is Here? Symposium to Wrap-up VIU Cultural Mapping Project

Public invited to celebrate with VIU community and keynote speakers, July 20-22  

When Vancouver Island University (VIU) student researchers and faculty first launched a community mapping project called ‘Where is Here?’ in February 2016, they recognized they were heading into uncharted territory. What started as an idea about digitally mapping cultural stories, led to nine VIU students and three professors from different faculties coming together to create the first ever interactive, digital cultural maps of Nanaimo, Port Alberni and Courtenay.

The maps feature videos of citizens sharing where and why they feel connected to their city’s downtown cores, histories of the areas including Aboriginal perspectives and other data designed to make people consider their downtown areas in a more creative, cultural and personal light.

Collecting data to build and present the digital maps was the first deliverable of the project. The second is for the public to join cultural mapping experts at a Where is Here? Symposium, scheduled to be held at the Comox Valley Art Gallery and Native Sons Hall in downtown Courtenay, July 20-22. It was all made possible thanks to a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the support of 10 community partners.

“The Where is Here? project was a result of a group of leisure and tourism researchers, media makers and geographers who wondered what we might learn about connectedness to community if we recorded videos of people talking about the specific places in their city’s downtown areas where they feel most connected,” said Nicole Vaugeois, who is the BC Regional Innovation Chair in Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development and professor at VIU. “Since then the team has collected 84 videos and developed three interactive cultural maps that are currently available to the public on the Where is Here? website. It’s been an incredible experience getting to this point and I’m excited to celebrate and share this achievement at the upcoming symposium.”

The three day symposium will feature 25 cultural mapping specialists from across Canada and the world. William Garrett-Petts, a Thompson Rivers University professor and author, will be one of three keynote speakers. He spent more than a decade working with 26 social science and humanities researchers and 30 community partners to explore ideas of social capital and community asset building in communities of 100,000 and smaller.

“Cultural maps gather information and local perspectives but also function as arguments defining cultural and historical boundaries,” said Garrett-Petts. “I think we need to consider cultural maps as artifacts, as objects of study in their own right, as well as forms of social action, foundations for advocacy, and, sometimes, as works of art. I’m delighted that the organizers of the ‘Where is Here?’ symposium are similarly interested in collecting, analyzing, and evaluating the multiple modes and forms of cultural mapping.”

Other keynote speakers include Nancy Duxbury, a cultural mapping specialist based in Coimbra, Portugal and Simon Fraser University community media professor, Dr. Stuart Poyntz. Over the three day symposium a series of panel discussions will explore cultural mapping as it applies to social justice, creative practice, municipal planning and acknowledgment of sacred spaces.

The Where is Here? team wishes to gratefully acknowledge the sponsors who provided support to the project: City of Nanaimo; City of Courtenay; City of Port Alberni; Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association; Comox Valley Art Gallery; Comox Valley Record; North Island College; Simon Fraser University; and #WeAreYQQ.

The symposium is open to everyone. To reserve and to learn more about the project go to the Where is Here? website.

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MEDIA CONTACT: 

Dane Gibson, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University

P: 250.740.6288 | E: Communications@viu.ca T: #viunews