Hosted by The Associated Designers of Canada in the early months of 2021. This symposium consisted of a series of presentations and moderated discussions between presenters and attendees. It actively brought together collaborators from across the country in an online platform that was safe and without risk, an absolute necessity for the success of our Canadian performing arts ecology during the COVID-19 crisis.
Together this symposium deepened our community’s understanding of how visual design, interactive technology, social media, and online broadcasting tools can support live storytelling and provide a platform to establish flexibility and allow stalled projects to pivot into suitable formats for the current COVID-19 era and beyond.
Erin conceptualized this 4-week online symposium and wrote and secured a Digital Strategy Fund Grant with the support of her ADC board of directors colleagues. The ADC received 33K from Canada Council for the Arts to realize LEVEL UP. Erin and her co-curators hired collaborators, recruited participants and presenters, and contributed to overseeing the entire symposium of 38+ events with more than 50 artist presenters.
Emily Soussana and Andrew Scriver of potatoCakes_digital were Erin's fellow creators and co-curators of this Symposium.
The Symposium was only possible with the volunteer efforts of Ken Mackenzie, Ian Garrett, Simon Rossiter, Mishelle Cuttler, Rachel Forbes, Joanna Yu, Megan Koshka, and Scott Penner as well as support from Toasterlab's Mixed Reality Performance Atelier.
Nearly 500 attendees were able to engage at no cost due to the large grant and additional sponsorships acquired with support of the above colleagues and volunteers.
Full archive of the Symposium is available HERE.
For more information peruse the 'Invitation to Participate' PDF document below.
