Immersive Art Ecosystem Knowledge Exchange & Symposium
Immersive art grows through the relationships that carry it: between artists and venues, technical knowledge and lived experience, local experimentation and wider circulation. This initiative creates space to build those relationships together.
A visual proposition for a living ecosystem: distinct pathways held in relationship around an open shared centre.
The initiative
Knowledge moves in more than one direction.
The Immersive Art Ecosystem Knowledge Exchange & Symposium is a Canada Council for the Arts supported, multi-phase initiative led by MOVE37XR. It brings together artists, technologists, planetarium and venue teams, curators, researchers and cultural organizations to share knowledge, identify barriers and strengthen the conditions for immersive art to be created, experienced and circulated.
The work begins from a practical question: how can artists bring immersive work to audiences without rebuilding it from the ground up for every venue? By connecting people who make the work with the places that can hold it, the initiative explores more sustainable, accessible and reciprocal ways for immersive practices to travel across British Columbia, Canada and beyond.
How it began
November 25, 2025 DigiBC Creative Tech Studio
Creative Collisions: Open Screen. Open Mic. Open Jam.
The Immersive Art Ecosystem Knowledge Exchange & Symposium was kicked off through MOVE37XR’s partnership on Creative Collisions: Open Screen. Open Mic. Open Jam. Produced with Opera Reborn and TouchDesigner YVR, Vancouver’s first immersive jam session brought technologists, performers and digital dreamers together to create in real time.
Across interactive showcase zones — from wall and floor projection to a 270 projection cube, LED light sculpture and a floor-to-ceiling lounge screen — artists shared works in progress, experiments and spontaneous performance. The evening closed with an Open Mic and Open Screen jam, where musicians, theatre-makers and digital artists improvised across their practices.
That exchange made visible the appetite for a recurring space where people can connect, play, test ideas and shape the future of live, digital and immersive creation together. It became an early catalyst for the ecosystem work now continuing through SCI_ART 2026 and the planned November gathering.
Individual practices remain distinct while knowledge, care, technical skill and opportunity circulate through a shared field.
Why this work matters
Research and listening
Artists and venues need each other.
Immersive artists are often asked to adapt work to isolated systems, short presentation windows and venue-specific technical requirements. At the same time, many planetariums and immersive spaces are looking for ways to welcome new audiences, deepen community relationships and activate their existing infrastructure.
This initiative treats those needs as connected. It creates a setting to share what is already known, surface the gaps, and build practical relationships between artists and venues.
Gathering and experimentation
Make room for the work in progress.
Workshops, round tables, demonstrations and open-dome sessions give artists, venue teams and partners a place to test ideas together. The aim is not a single format or a single event, but a living community of practice that supports experimentation, fairer circulation and more meaningful access to immersive art.
Sharing and continuity
Carry learning forward.
Findings move through relationships, future gatherings and accessible knowledge-sharing with partners and communities. As the initiative develops, it remains responsive to the people and organizations shaping it.
SCI_ART 2026: current public programme
A contribution to After the Data / Cultural Climate Futures
MOVE37XR’s contribution to SCI_ART 2026 is part II of the Immersive Art Ecosystem Knowledge Exchange & Symposium. Across October 3–5, the programme creates opportunities for artists, scientists, curators and researchers from Canada and the European Union to meet through talks, demonstrations, conversation and fulldome experimentation.
The wider SCI_ART gathering takes place across Vancouver and New Westminster from October 2–5, then continues in Kelowna from October 6–8. MOVE37XR’s contributions are integrated into the Vancouver and New Westminster programme.
October 3 11:00am–5:30pm Anvil Centre New Westminster Free
Art & Technology Symposium
Presented with New Media Gallery as part of the New Westminster Cultural Crawl, the Art & Technology Symposium brings together artists working across contemporary art, science, technology and emerging media for talks, workshops and conversation.
MOVE37XR: Indigenous Media & the Future
4:30–5:30pm
A conversation on Indigenous media, immersive storytelling and futurism across generations and disciplines. Moderated by Natalia Lebedinskaia, Stólō artist and art director Joshua Conrad is joined by Austin Aan’yas Harry, Kayah George and Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos. Together, they consider practice, mentorship, collaboration, and the evolving meaning of “new media” and technology within Indigenous art.
October 4 6:00–10:00pm H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Vancouver
SCI_ART Creative Collisions Open Dome
Vancouver’s first Open Dome jam session brings artists from across the European Union and Western Canada together with musicians, theatre-makers and digital artists in the Star Theatre planetarium. It is an evening to improvise, test ideas and merge practices across the dome.
October 5 9:00am–7:00pm Multimodal Media Lab Vancouver Free
SCI_ART 2026 Vancouver Symposium
European and Canadian artists working across art, science, technology and environmental research gather for three extended artist conversations, live demonstrations and a closing international exchange. The day considers how artistic research can make complex environmental and technological systems perceptible, open space for possible futures, and reshape how environmental transformation is culturally experienced.
The SCI_ART 2026 contribution is one stage in a longer process. In November 2026, MOVE37XR is planning a third Immersive Art Ecosystem Knowledge Exchange & Symposium offering in collaboration with our Vancouver-based Dreaming Node Network Partners.
The goal is to cultivate an ecosystem in which knowledge, care, technical skill and opportunity move in more than one direction — between Vancouver and remote communities, between established infrastructure and emerging practice, and across national and international networks.
