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Acadia University

Ideas in Residence/Creative Dislocations: Sense of Place and Digital Connections in the Rural Landscape

(Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Ideas in Residence/Creative Dislocations: Sense of Place and Digital Connections in the Rural Landscape was the theme for the inaugural Summer Institute in New Media Studies (INMS) held in 2003 at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Though the project is an initiative of this university, Scottish artist Gair Dunlop initially developed the concept. The aim of this project was to investigate how digital technologies can encourage people to engage with the natural environment in the Bay of Fundy ecosystem. This project also served as a starting point for putting together a new interdisciplinary program in new media studies at Acadia University.

The Foundation has supported INMS's artist-in-residence component. As artist in residence, Gair Dunlop lead visual imaging and design workshops. In his recent works, this artist has focused on digital imaging and environmental art. In addition, he has devised new ways to work with people in "action research" that expand our knowledge of lived experiences of environments, both natural and built. Within a collaborative program that ran from May to September 2003 and included workshops by Mr. Dunlop and university faculty, the student participants developed creative works that deepen our understanding of the dynamics between material and symbolic culture in the digital era.

Dunlop then curated an exhibition of multimedia works by participants that was presented at the end of his residency in September 2003. Furthermore, participants developed a Web site archives and digital museum that serve to preserve and disseminate the works created for the exhibition by the artist, students, faculty and staff. This exhibition coincided with a mini-conference reporting on the research conducted during the summer program.

Dominique Fontaine © 2004 FDL