Carey Newman’s Witness Blanket continues to evolve, this time as a multi-user VR experience
Artist Carey Newman is expanding his 'Witness Blanket' project, which honors survivors of residential schools, into a multi-user virtual reality experience. Developed with Camosun College, the project aims to facilitate classroom education and meaningful dialogue about Indigenous history.
Why it matters
This project demonstrates how immersive technology can be used to preserve cultural history and provide educational access to sensitive, important narratives.
Inspired by a blanket, woven together to provide comfort and protection, Newman brought together items reclaimed from residential schools and other institutions to tell the stories of the thousands of Indigenous children forced to attend.
The physical art installation has since been adapted online and into a single-user virtual reality (VR) experience, giving people the chance to view items from afar and read and hear the stories connected to them.
Now, in collaboration with Camosun College on Vancouver Island, the project is being expanded once again, to create a multi-user VR experience, something Newman hopes can be used in a classroom environment.
“This VR builds on the original Witness Blanket , offering users the opportunity to interact with the objects, discover sounds of culture and language that have been collected from Indigenous community members before being integrated into the virtual experience,” said Newman, a Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish artist.
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