York University is earning recognition in the world of emergent media and extended reality (XR) through a project that draws inspiration from the micro-economy of sari-sari stores in the Philippines.
These community-operated convenience shops, often managed by women and deeply embedded in local culture, are the focus of the Sari-Sari Xchange (SSX) initiative, a partnership with McMaster University, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Mitacs Accelerate research internship program.
The Sari-Sari Xchange: Building Asian Diasporic Community Through Emergent Media project received $446,847 through SSHRC's Race, Gender and Diversity Initiative: 2021-22 Competition and is led by McMaster University's Carmela Laganse and co-directed by York Research Chair and Associate Professor Taien Ng-Chan at York’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.
This SSHRC initiative works to promote fairness and justice by supporting research that looks at how different parts of a person’s identity – like race, gender, class and sexuality – combine to shape their experiences. That approach, called intersectionality, helps researchers understand how systems of power can create both unfair treatment and advantages.
The SSX project aims to build collaboration between academia and the community to explore how new media and technology can help promote inclusion through digital spaces where artists and researchers from Asian communites can share their work.
The SSX team, including York PhD candidates Sana Akram and Haoran Chang, will bring its research and creative practice to the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival on Nov. 13 and 14 as part of the festival’s RA:X programming, dedicated to innovative screen-based projects.
Presenting Render Me in Your Worlds, a multi-day symposium, the team will share how XR technologies can amplify diverse storytelling and relational creative practices rooted in the lived experiences of the Asian diaspora.
“Extended-reality is an umbrella term that can refer to any technological mediation of reality, including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), locative media and video projection mapping,” explains Ng-Chan. “This field has seen tremendous growth in the past few years due to an increased availability of immersive consumer technologies. But, as in many other creative fields, there is a lack of diverse storytelling and representation of marginalized cultures.”
The SSX team will facilitate outreach and knowledge sharing on XR’s contribution to research through emergent media.
The symposium features four events at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival that explore storytelling through XR. On Nov. 13, Chang will moderate a panel on preserving cultural heritage through XR and will co-lead a tai chi motion capture workshop blending embodied philosophy with immersive tech. On Nov. 14, Akram will moderate a panel on XR world-building and performativity. The events conclude with the celebratory launch of the Sari-Sari Xchange Assetory, a virtual asset library prototype created in collaboration with Asian communities.
Details are available on the festival website.