Landscape of Hope

The digital art initiative is youth-led and designed to empower them with critical digital literacy skills and social media tools to create cutting-edge multimedia performances and installations that describe their experiences with hate, discrimination and cyber bullying. Our aim is to implement and evaluate a sustainable, multi-sectoral, culturally-relevant, youth-led approach to creating media-based narratives that accurately reflect youths’ lived experiences, with the ultimate objective of reducing instances of discrimination.

We are currently funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ), Canadian Heritage, and the Michaëlle Jean Foundation.

Credit: Dezy Nair

Landscape of Hope is inspired by and derived from the work of the multimedia collective Landscape of Hate.

In this 9-minute video, members and participants explain the concept and experience of Landscape of Hope.

The Landscape of Hope team has put together a guidebook for evaluating art-driven and resilience-based initiatives. While the guide is intended to support researchers and partners of the project in measuring the progress and effectiveness of their work, it will serve as a practical tool to any organization undertaking similar work at the intersection of social justice, education and the arts.

Download the guidebook.

This 55-minute webinar, recorded in English on November 22nd, 2021, describes evaluating art-driven and resilience-based initiatives based on the guidebook.

The Landscape of Hope logo, created by David Hall, is a take on the universal symbol for wifi. The two hand-drawn lines and ink splat for the traditional circle represent artistic creation, and the project’s ethos of using art and the creation of art amongst young people to help counter online harassment, bullying and hate. The barbed wire line represents this online hate, however the two hand-drawn bars safely protect the user – art protects us and creates a safe space – from online bullying.The shape of the overall logo, starting at the bottom, gradually expands and gets bigger – not only does this respect the original symbol, and its meaning of wifi signal spreading outwards – but this represents the ripple effect ones actions, behaviour and language have online. They can often start small, and grow exponentially.

Ultimately, this logo will be seen as a fusion of mobility, online presence, creativity, and protection.

Team

Vivek Venkatesh, Owen Chapman, Sandra Chang-Kredl, Annabelle Brault, Martin Lalonde, Jason Wallin, Jessie Beier, Veronica Mockler, Léa Clermont-Dion, Kathryn Urbaniak, Emma June Huebner, Ashley Montgomery, Éva Roy, David Hall, Leslie Touré Kapo, Nik Forrest, Michel Poulin, Lou Raskin, Angus Tarnawsky, Maxime Brunet, Safia Boufalaas, Mairin Miller, Lucas Throw, Marilou Lyonnais A.