The National Film Board recently released an “interactive” project called Similkameen Crossroads.
Similkameen Crossroads is the second interactive release from the NFB/imagineNATIVE Digital Media Partnership, which supports new forms of indigenous artistic expression and offers Canadian Aboriginal artists an opportunity to develop audacious, innovative and socially relevant new media works.
For Métis artist Tyler Hagan, the iconic little church off Highway 3 near Hedley serves as the focal point of the interactive photo essay, as Hagan seeks to reconcile his Christian upbringing with the church’s blighted yet enduring relationship with First Nations people.
Similkameen Crossroads combines stunning images of the church and surrounding valley with audio fragments from Hagan’s highly personal exploration of place, faith and identity. It’s the latest interactive work from the NFB, whose Web documentaries and immersive online experiences are pioneering new directions in storytelling while exploring underrepresented stories and issues across Canada.
After his Christian upbringing in the suburbs of Vancouver, Hagan was thrust into an examination of faith and identity when his father died, triggering a process that eventually led him to claim Métis citizenship. For Similkameen Crossroads, he spent weeks gathering images and interviews, aided by the generous spirit of the people of the Similkameen Valley, who shared their stories, beliefs and practices. What they described to Hagan was a complex, often contradictory, set of spiritual and cultural identities, one that gave this Vancouver-based filmmaker and digital artist an invaluable working model for a way of being that embraces multiplicity.
For more information about this release, see:
http://crossroads.nfb.ca/#/crossroads