My creative response to the partnership was a research into location, time, and space in relationship to the shoreline of Vancouver. With my interest in soft robotics, I designed a paper maquette of the robot that I will be creating during my second term and continued involvement with Other Sights.

Working with the help of instructors and technicians in other departments on campus, and organizations such as Vancouver Hacker Space and MakerLabs, I hope to complete a working prototype by the end of next year. The design is still being worked out, and I would like to do further research into just what it would mean to release a form into the water, track its movements along the shoreline, and place it within the context of contemporary art.

Personally, the appeal in this project is not just in its digital and technical challenges, but in its unpredictability, its questionable autonomy, its continually changing position in the water, its inevitable breakdown as it loses power, and its yet unknowable outcome. I think that these aspects of the project speak to my deeper interests in identity, site, diaspora, and chance, as well as to my partnership experience with Other Sights.

With their project, The Foreshore, I was privy to the formal and impromptu discussions that arose during their events. The talks touched on the political, social, and ecological issues related to the shore/water/easements/contentious lands in a way that informed my interests and questions. Being able to see how an issue is examined and turned every which way in order to understand it, was invaluable to see, and I wanted to reflect upon this thoughtfulness and careful research in my own creative response.