Landscape of Hope is a unique, sample-based remixing project that magnifies youth narratives as they pertain to building resilience against racism, discrimination, prejudice and cyber bullying. The project is designed to empower marginalized groups 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 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. 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.

Also with French captions:

Landscape of Hope, Canadian premiere (2019)

The Canadian premiere of Landscape of Hope was held on February 20, 2019 at Concordia University, Montreal. Facebook event here and for more information and photos click here.

View a short clip of the Montreal performance in February, 2019.

Here is the full-length performance.

Landscape of Hope premiere, Tromsø (2018)

The inaugural performance of Landscape of Hope by Vivek Venkatesh and Owen Chapman was held on November 7 2018 in Tromsø, Norway alongside collaborators at Arctic Pride, TVIBIT and Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum. Prior to the performance, there was an interactive workshop on digital art for young people between 17 to 24 years old on November 5. For more information and photos see here.

(Image credit: Alessandro Belleli)





Listen to an excerpt of the Tromsø performance below.

Landscape of Hope, Iceland 2019

Landscape of Hope performed with Bardspec at the Eistnaflug 2019 festival in Neskaupstaður, Iceland in July.

Images by Ásgeir Þrastarson.

Landscape of Hope, Montreal 2019

This Landscape of Hope event was part of the Theology in the City Conference at Concordia University. Theology in the City is a free week-long conference hosted by the Department of Theological Studies explores the themes of resilience, hope, suspicion and fear through a multidisciplinary lens. It took place on October 31 at St Jax Church in Montreal.

Photos by Leigh Glynn-Finnegan and Daniel Valenzuela

Landscape of Hope logo

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.